Clearing The Air

Coming up with titles to posts is not my strength. In reference to this one, no, we didn't just change a nasty diaper. I thought I should clear a few things up regarding my last post.

In regards to Brynlee's therapy, we do have a therapist who comes every other week; however, I do most of Brynlee's therapy myself at home several times a day. The reason we don't go to outpatient therapy at this point is because of Brynlee's compromised immune system. This should be changing shortly. In fact, our therapist, Cindy, came yesterday and is probably more anxious than I am to get her to outpatient. Cindy feels pretty limited at our home and feels that Brynlee needs to get to the clinic where they have more equipment that would benefit her. Cindy also wants to get Brynlee in what I think she called hippotherapy, which would involve riding horses. She feels it would benefit Brynlee's abdominal and back muscles. The thought is a little crazy to put my what then would be a 1-year-old baby on a horse, but okay. She said they start up again in March and told me to ask the rehab doctor about it.  

I told Cindy about our less than encouraging visit with the neurologists, and she pointed out some positive things about Brynlee and told me that Brynlee is definitely engaging muscles in her legs because of some of the things she is doing. When we started, Brynlee could not sit up by herself; she would just flop over. Now she can sit for quite a long time without support. A month ago, Brynlee could hardly stand up to the couch with me supporting her legs; now she holds herself up and for very brief seconds doesn't even require me supporting her legs. Two weeks ago when we tried to help Brynlee crawl, she couldn't do any of it. Now we put her in the crawling position and she rocks back and forth. We help her crawl by moving her legs for her and supporting her trunk while she tries to move her hands. Cindy is kind of our cheerleader. She helps remind me of how far we have come and has pointed out that there is obviously something engaging in her legs, Brynlee is just going to have to find a different pathway from her brain to her legs to get it to work.

So we are going to see what this rehab doctor has in mind for Brynlee and go from there, but I have researched other facilities and we are considering everything from a place in Baltimore where they claim to be the international leading specialists for spinal cord injuries to adult stem cell injections/procedures in Panama. Realistically Baltimore is more the route we would possibly take (and the facility is in our insurance network), but we are pretty open to seeing where this all takes us. I am intrigued by this whole stem cell thing though, especially since it does not involve embryonic stem cells. Anyway, I know that ultimately there is only One who can heal Brynlee, and it is not a doctor. We continue to pray for her and for guidance and direction regarding her care. Oh, and let's not forget that we still have to get rid of that ugly thing called cancer.