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we’ll be in the air this time next week!

I can’t believe there’s only a week to go now. It’s been such an amazing experience all round. We’re into a routine now, with an hour’s physio each day at the hospital, plus half hour of stretches morning and evening and other strengthening exercises on top – and standing and walking at every available opportunity during the day.

We’re seeing improvements all the time. We’re 18 days post-op now – 6 days after the last video was posted on YouTube:

and now she’s progressed from here in that we can kneel down behind her and hold her hips straight (she tends to rotate them a bit because she’s weaker on one side which makes her start stepping sideways) and she can step forwards from there. I’ll post another video soon.

Although the spasticity has completely gone, 6 years of under-using some muscles and over-using others make it difficult for Immy to place her feet in the right places as she steps. For example, although her quadriceps are quite strong, she’s not been used to using them to walk so tends to lift her whole leg at her hip and bring her knee up, but hasn’t yet learned to kick her shin out to step forwards. We’re practicing scoring goals to work on this one (and authorised kicking of family members!). Also her abductor muscles (outside leg from hip to knee) are very weak so the adductors (inside thigh from groin to knee) take over and her feet stay very close together and still occasionally cross over. She is also weak in her arms and upper body which means that she “crumples” at times, especially when she’s tired. It’s so much easier to see which parts are weaker and stronger now that the spasticity has gone Spasticity groups muscle movements together and makes it hard to separate the effects of different muscles. It is also hugely tiring and wasteful and pernicious, in that the harder you try the worse it gets – it is GREAT to be rid of the spasticity. If we achieve nothing else I’d be grateful for this!

For example it has been fab to hold Imogen’s arms and watch her feet walking along the bottom of the swimming pool, heels down and legs and back straight. She couldn’t do this before surgery – her toes would point and her upper body fold inwards so that she ended up with her head underwater (not ideal!). she’d spend all her time in the pool if she could!

We’re also having lots of fun in our spare time. St Louis is a fab city with loads to do for children. Opposite the huge hospital complex is an enormous park that literally goes on for a few miles. It has a science centre, several museums, a huge zoo and loads of other attractions – most of which are free entry. We’ve been to the zoo 3 times now and the science centre and big planetarium. Owen is in a “space” craze as a result. Bruce bought him a book, probably aimed at about a child twice his age, and he now knows, for example, which are the solar system’s four rocky planets (he was testing me on this earlier today) and is starting to get his head around the concept of gravity and hence weightlessness in space. It’s such a joy watching him learn!

We’ve now also hired a car so we can explore a bit further afield. Today we went to (also free-entry) a rural family spot called Grant’s Farm – historic home of the Anheuser-Busch beer family (Budweiser etc). As well as farm animals they also have some more exotic ones, most exciting of which are the two elephants, who treated us to a show – with dancing and spraying the front row (us) with water from a bucket!

All of our living and general sight-seeing expenses here are coming out of Hurrell family funds, and not the Immy Finds Her Feet Fund – which has so far paid for medical expenses, flights and the accommodation only. Immy is very likely to need tendon lengthening surgery in the future, and the orthopaedic surgeon here has a particuarly good technique for it, and is used to working with SDR patients so we’re grateful that there’s enough money in the fund to afford to do this (would only require a brief stay). It’s also becoming clear to me just how much hard work we’ll need to put in now, and how we really will benefit from supplementing the NHS service with our own private physio.

Better hit the deck now – it’s Trinity Sunday tomorrow and the patronal festival of the church we’ve been attending here – they have a picnic in the grounds after the service and I’ll probably sing the Tchaikovsky “Holy Holy Holy” with the choir in the service (so need to be there for 9.15 am!)

Night night all xxx