Two important things this week: in Occupational Therapy (OT) this week, the OT (Martha) was so happy with the progress in Ariel's left arm that she beamed at her. That is, she was using a different part of her arm to do the OT exercises that she could not before, and that, it seemed to the OT, (who are not typically given to effusions of optimism) that her arm was waking up.
In PT, she walked an outdoor obstacle course: sidewalk, coble stones, sand, gavel, grass, then up and down cement stairs. All this she did without balking, with little help from PT (Sue), other than blocking her left ankle from time to time.
Saturday, she walked into the kitchen and practiced opening drawers with her left hand (i had to put her fingers in the pull, then she would open and close it), the refrigerator and the kitchen door (with her right).
Saturday evening, we went to a party (Philosophy Dept. friends; there are never history Dept. parties), with much bigger obstacles than in therapy. She had to negotiate the front steps with no railings at all, down narrow hallways with various kinds of rugs on them, past other guests, bounding dogs, etc. After an hour or so, we left the way we came in. Going down stairs is much trickier than going up. But down we went. I held her arm, the gait belt and a friend (Ray) held it from behind.
Then i got the wheelchair and took her to the car.
One year ago, she came home from the rehab hospital.
An old photo of Ariel in Delphi in 1998.
