Tuesday (post op day 12) - bath day!!

Today started well - because Daniel had only woke up ONCE in the night - hooray!! Let's hope he can manage that again tonight, then we will have to introduce the night knee immobilisers, and probably mess him up again, but we will take that as it comes...

Anyway, we had therapy with lovely Jackie at 9 (another rushed breakfast first) and Lucy dragged Chris off to the siblings playroom. We lost a chunk of the physio time because Daniel needed the toilet in the middle (which is not straightforward or quick at any time right now, and even more tricky when we are out and about). However, apart from the lost time, it all went well, highlights being...

1) He did a LOT of standing (with quick 'sit down' breaks every time he got tired), while throwing balls into a net.

2) He went into the big physio gym, on the totalgym equipment, to work his legs

3) He went on the trike and rode all around the 4th floor. He has a trike at home similar to this, and pre-op could ride it freely himself on the flat. Today, being much weaker, he needed a bit of help, but did manage short bits independently. We were still really happy because this time last week they had tried him on the trike and had to take him straight off again because he screamed in agony from his back, so today was certainly an improvement on that!

After therapy, we came back to the apartment for a rest and snack, and then tackled his home exercises. He again made a slight improvement on yesterday, and below is today's exciting bit of video. This is him working his abductors (wearing his knee immobiliser to keep his leg straight) and it is another movement he has never previously in his life been able to do! If you have the sound on, you will catch the strains of Elton John, who now seems to be the permanent choice of accompaniment for the home exercises!

In the middle of that session, with a bit of encouragement, Daniel also pushed himself up into side-sitting. He wasn't able to take his hands off his knees and balance, but it is another bit of progress back towards his pre-op level of function (he could do this before).

After lunch we introduced Chris to the delights of the Galleria Mall, and then came back for the Social Evening at the hotel, which gave us chance to catch up with three of the other SDR families from the UK.

After tea, we tackled THE BATH! Today was the first day for almost 2 weeks that Daniel has been allowed a bath and we were keen to take advantage of that and make him clean again (although Daniel was a bit sad to lose his Mohican hairstyle). The bath was not straightforward because he can't sit well enough at the moment to sit in the bath on his own, and sitting direct on the bumpy bath mat - even supported by us - hurt his back. So in the end, he had to sit on my knee in the bath, and we then tipped the water over him to wash his body and his hair. I think he was happy to be clean afterwards, and ready for bed. We did wimp out of taking the big plaster off his back though, since it seems to be very firmly attached. I think we will leave that job for a few more days.

Clean at last!

Tomorrow, we have therapy again at 9am, then the appointment with the 'eye doctor', and various eye tests afterwards (three hour appointment - could be hard work). I'll explain what that's all about when I update tomorrow.

By the way, I have mentioned before how much we value the messages etc. It is incredible to us the number of people from home (and elsewhere) who seem to be following Daniel's progress and literally willing him on. Thank you.