c'mon baby, do the locomotion

The past couple of weeks at Cardinal Hill have been wonderful!
Lance has shown great improvement in almost all areas. There are several coma recovery scales that have been used to measure Lance's consciousness. He is now measuring a 4 on the Rancho scale. Some might say that he is awake... I still have faith that there is more emerging to come.

I mentioned before that during speech therapy, not only are they working towards vocalization, they are working on all kinds of communication. Lance has a mouse that can plug into a computer, its a huge mouse. with a baseball size trackball. And left and right color coded buttons. When you ask Lance to roll the trackball up and down, he does. He can also roll is from left to right. When dad ask him to right click, he follows that command. One day last week, he moved a card on a solitaire board using the mouse. He will also mouth not only single words, but phrases. Such as God is Good. and I Love You. He can count from 1 to 10. So even though he can't move the noise up and out, most of us can read his lips.
Yesterday, Ted and Holly Gilbert came to visit him. Ted taught Lance how to play guitar several years ago. Ted, Lance, Brock, Dad and Kevin Angel were in a band called Joyful Racket. Ted played several of their old songs, and when he played How Great is Our God, Lance mouthed almost every word!

After continuous casting on his arms, botox injections and strenuous stretching, I think that the tone has been broken in Lance's arms. He is able to stretch them out almost straight. His left arm still doesn't do as much as the right. But his hand will squeeze yours. and sometimes he will rotate his shoulder while sitting up. Last week, they began pool therapy for Lance. The warm pool water has really helped in many areas. Lance loves to swim, and we get to get in the pool with him.

A couple weeks ago Lance was eating bites of pureed chicken. However, something has caused his swallowing reflex to decrease. We think this may have been caused by the Botox that was administered to the muscles in his arms. In some rare causes, Botox has been known to temporarily paralyze muscles that are involved in swallowing. So, until that effect wears off, we will be only giving him ice chips.

Back in March and April when we were at home, Lance had great strength in his core. He was able to help us stand and sometimes he even wanted to continue to stand. Because of seizures medication and medicine to help with the tone in his arms, that core strength has been lessened over the past several weeks. However, last Tuesday the therapist decided to see how long he could sit on the edge of the exercise mat with his feet on the floor. They were watching their watches closely, hoping he could make it to 30 seconds. Lance sat perfectly still, with zero support for 30 seconds, then a minute. then two minutes. Then... as more of the staff gathered around, he continued to sit. There were calls being made to the insurance company and all eyes were on him, as he sat upright for 20 minutes!

The other big thing is the Lokomat! The Lokomat is a robot.. sort of. Lance is strapped into a harness and is suspended over a treadmill. More straps secure his shoulders and legs, all of this is hooked up to a computer which assist Lance in locomotion therapy. The machine lets Lance move his legs in a walking motion, but will kick in to help if he gets tired. Its a lot like the FES bike he rode when he was in Atlanta. When they tell him to kick harder, or bring his knee up higher, the sensors on his legs show that his muscles are working.
The first time, Lance walked for 15 minutes, 1421 feet. The second day, 26 minutes. and 4373 feet.  I hope all of you can open this video!

Lance is working hard... so, please keep praying for him!!

-chelcee