In reading my last post, I know
I ran through the whole thing pretty quickly. I was trying not to go on and on - I know I go on and on too much sometimes,
but I think I left out some pretty important stuff and it might not have made too much sense. But I don't think I'll
go into it at the moment. (Hey, thanks for clearing it up, then, Allison!) Oh, whatever.
I'm still sleep-deprived.
Today in physical therapy, Sam
held his head up completely on his own for two and a half minutes, twice! That’s BY FAR the longest he’s ever been able
to do that. We’ve only ever had a few seconds before, and that’s been attributed to his spasticity*. This was
definitely him doing it, though, which is a HUGE improvement.
I’ve also noticed that he’s gotten
some trunk control, and when I touch his back anywhere, he’s responding – almost jumping out of his skin. I’m going
to take that as a good sign, since he doesn’t yell at me when I do it.
This has pretty much all been
in the last week – before that we were getting lots of blinking, which is certainly good, and a lot of movement in his face
in muscles that I didn’t even know moved. Nothing in the “smiler”, but still all around the face.
*In a person with a
brain injury like Sam's, the damage tends to be in the area of the brain that controls muscle tone and movement of the
arms and legs. The brain can't influence the amount of flexibility a muscle should have. The command from the muscle
itself dominates the spinal cord and, as a result, the muscle is too tense, or spastic.
