It takes a village...

Oh, that feeling you get when you write out a blog post before saving it and it goes poof! Ouch. Here I go again. I will be updating this blog weekly after today. I just wanted to squeeze one more post in before we leave for the weekend.

Today, we started our morning with Speech Therapy. Frankie was evaluated and surprisingly scored higher than I thought she would. Her Speech Therapist told me not to be surprised if her language skills take off this month.The reason is because physically, her right side is going to be on overdrive and the part of the brain where Speech is affected is on the left side. This is the same side we hope to have those sweet little neurons firing up a storm.

After Speech,our Occupational Therapist came to our hotel suite for our session. CIT is 24/7 now, but we focused on electric stimulation while prompting Frankie's non dominant hand to reach, open and release. What is ESTIM? It's a little machine that uses an electric current to cause a single muscle or a group of muscles to contract. Electrodes are placed on the skin and in our case,they were placed on Frankie's legs, glutes, arms and hands today. The muscles are forced to contract thus helping to strengthen them. ESTIM also promotes blood supply to the area that the electrodes are placed on. This procedure coupled with CIT is so awesome because the muscles are getting help, for lack of a better word, to work! I actually tried putting the electrodes on myself a while back and it feels kinda' tingly. When using the machine, we have to be real careful not to place the setting on too high because you can actually cause injury to a muscle. We will be using this technique quite a bit throughout the month. I'm SO thankful that these therapists are pros at utilizing these machines!  

Not only is Frankie sporting 2 braces, she has a cast on her arm and more wires than she had in the NICU! She has been such a trouper...a lot more tolerant than I would be. She is, of course, very exhausted and gets frustrated easily since she has to be even more dependent on me. She wants to do everything herself!

Overall, It's hard to believe this is only day 2. I think we can, I think we can. Frankie is realizing now that the cast is staying on for a while. If she complains of a skin issue I can always cut the cast off myself. WOW! It truly takes a village to raise a child. There is NO way I could do this alone. How do you guys do it with two, three, four kids? Ya'll have superpowers! In my case, thank God I have a supportive husband and a fantastic team to get us through these hurdles in this beautiful life we have. 

WAIT! I had to throw this last picture in. Today, I've realized with Frankie that where there's a will or chip, there's a way! NO problems getting a chip in her right hand at lunch. =)