Colin’s right arm started moving one week before Christmas last year. Since then, he has been working really hard on strengthening it. He is trying to write again with his right hand, but doesn’t have the wrist control. It is possible to write with gross movement, but we are hoping for return and control of fine movement.
Here are two videos from last week – one writing, and one trying to stand up onto his legs (although don’t get too excited, he can’t, and this doesn’t necessarily mean he will walk) because he does have some movement and strength in his legs. We need to get his legs strong enough to see if he can start to assist with transfers by lifting his weight for us to shift more easily.
Also, we have pictures of the animals (and of course, Jabu) helping him with a new feature in the exercises – we now do stuff on the floor as well. Michelle and Chrissie are “helping” Colin with his exercises.
I’d like to tell you what my GP told me a couple of days ago. He said that he had a palsy of one of his vocal chords more than two years ago. My GP is a singer. He was told by a top specialist that the vocal chord would never recover, but after two years it did and is as good as it was before the palsy. He also told me that he’s had a few patients who lost their speech and were told that if it had not returned within a specific period, it never would. He said they all regained their speech, even though it took longer than the specified period. He gave me other examples of nerves that had recovered from damage, when people had been told they would not recover.
So it seems the human body can and does continue to heal itself, against the predictions of the prevailing medical wisdom.