Those of you who saw Bov’s legs in lycra in his past re-incarnation will not be surprised by this post but it is too exciting to not share – what a huge week at Talbot – 2-3 hours of therapy each day so far plus massage and a FES bike session … only an hour tomorrow but he will need a rest before another busy weekend at the blue house!

All the hard work by the amazing Harri and his new physio Janet is paying off – his arms are much looser than they were (he can almost rotate his forearms outwards – there will be a technical term for this like flexion or something but anyway you get what I mean!) and today he can move his fingers a bit – too exciting! Unfortunately he can scrunch them in a bit (as though to make a fist) but he can’t then unscrunch them ….  but maybe that is for next week!

But those legs …. never say never …

Yesterday on the FES bike he managed to pedal it himself – yep, he overrode the stims and pedalled it. The bike kept the pedal stroke smoother than he could control it himself but still! He managed this for about 10 mins and even got up to 5 watts! I don’t think he could decide whether to laugh or cry – the last time he was riding he was pushing closer to 250 watts but as the song says – “the only way is up”. He also got his heart-rate up above 100 and he even had a bead of sweat on his forehead!

And today in hydro he took his first baby steps – so exciting .. I got some of it on video on my phone (it was all I had with me!) so when I work out how to download it and get it to Sparky (hopefully before Christmas knowing my incompetence) you can all have a look and cheer him on too! It was not a very manly walk – he was really relying on tone (or spasticity) in his muscles and was up on his tip-toes, he couldn’t push his heals down. Being the ever supportive wife that I am, after cheering for a bit I told him I would be in late tomorrow so I could go pick him up a pair of ballet slippers. Apparently I am a bitch … I prefer to think of it as motivation!

Looking forward to another fun and busy weekend in the blue house – Mike thinks he might want a rest but there is too much to fit in! I promise his post is coming – he did get some computer time today and hopefully a bit more tomorrow. A massive thankyou to the wonderful Jacquie who came to drop some stuff off today but ended up staying to clean up (probably b/c she couldn’t actually get inside!) – what an angel, I will get some sleep tonight – yippppeeeee, yay! And no, I am not sharing her!