Great Few Days

This has been a great few days with Luke. He is making a new sound now...it sounds like a "tooting" sound. It is really cute! The amazing thing is now he can close his lips...which he has not been able to do. I am happy to say, he also got his Wii. Although I am not sure who likes it more Luke or Mike. Luke is able to play the baseball, bowling, golf, and fishing games. He is good considering you have to hold a button down and move your hand. I think it is going to be great for him. Thanks to Gram and Pap for the late Christmas present! A cute Luke story is the other day he was laying on his bed in our room while I was getting ready. He had on his AFO's, which are boot like things that velcro on to prevent him from getting foot drop. I heard the velcro sound, and turned around and the little guy had taken off one of his AFO's. This just shows how smart and strong he is!

This has been an encouraging few days for us also. Greg, one of Luke's great physical therapists, came on Friday. He told Mike when he was 12, him and his friend were playing with a flag pole. It ended up falling over on his friend. His friend was in a coma for six months. The encouraging part is...he heard from him recently and he was skiing in Park City, Utah. See...anything is possible if you believe! Then, yesterday, I took Luke for an evaluation at a therapy place called Sirri. The guy was very impressed with how much Luke was cognitively there. Basically he said cognitively he is your typical seven year old boy, we just have to get his body to work. He said the cognition part is HUGE after a brain injury, because it is harder to get back.

Thanks so much for the prayers...please continue to pray for continued restoration with Luke, pray for guidance for us as we pursue different treatment options..we just don't want to end up throwing money away, we want things that will work, and most importantly Believe in this miracle we are watching...The LORD is good, a strong refuge when trouble comes. He is close to those who trust in him. Nahum 1:7 NLT

I can not get the picture to upload so next time hopefully it will work!

Lots of Research

Not too much new to report this week. Luke has been working on being on all fours in a crawling position. I will say he is getting a lot stronger, but we still do have to give him a lot of support. We are continuing to do a lot of home therapy on the left side, and I can tell it is working...slowly, but surely. Luke started therapy this week with his second Physical Therapist. He made Lynsey's day when he said we should get Luke a Wii. He uses it with some of his other kids and it works on coordination without the kids even knowing they are getting therapy. Of course, it will be a lot easier to do once his eyes are open. He also suggested possibly trying horse therapy for Luke. He said that also helps with coordination and balance. Mainly I have been spending this week researching different things. Thank God for the internet! I can't even imagine not having access to so much info in a situation like this. Anyway, as you can imagine, I have lots of moms who are going through similar things as us. I have been following one kid who is a near drowning child here in Gilbert. His mom Lindsey is super sweet and has been an inspiration to me. If you get a chance, check out her site at www.prayforsantana.org and say a prayer for Santana. Since Luke was hurt I have had numerous people tell me to check out stem cell therapy or umbilical cord blood therapy. For whatever reason, it has been in the back of my head, but I never really did anything about it...until this week when I saw Lindsey write about it on Santana's blog. I have found some AMAZING results with this therapy in my research. The only bad thing is it is experimental and not readily available in the US (and probably will not be for a long time.) I have found numerous doctors that will do it outside of the US. One of the doctors is getting Luke's MRI and CT Scans to see if he would even be a candidate for it. So, please pray for guidance for us if this is the direction we need to go with Luke. I just want to be able to say at the end of every single day for however long it takes, that I have done EVERYTHING I can do to get him better because I KNOW we will get to that point. Believe and please pray for continued restoration. "Then Jesus told his disciples that they should always pray and NOT give up." Luke 18:1 (I promise a new picture the next time I post.)

On the right track...

Just wanted to post a quick update. Luke's new thing is he has a new board to show us some of his tricks. It is basically a felt board that we velcro different shapes to. Then we give him questions to answer. He loves to do it!! He also has a board the speech therapist brought that he can point to pictures showing he is hungry, thirsty, etc. Yesterday at acupunture he held his head up for almost the entire time...at least for 20 minutes which is the longest I have ever seen him do it. He also had the cutest giggle/laugh sound he did quite a bit yesterday. He is getting a lot more vocal..pray for speech soon! Also, on Tuesday, my aunt Kelli came to work with him. I ran a few errands, and when I came back she had him drinking from the straw. Although, he does not like to do it for us...so we are going to keep working on that. I think it is just the typical kid thing being stubborn for mom. He has a new trick he does with his hand...which basically shows he is getting his wrist rotation back on the right side. It makes it a lot easier for him to try to throw a ball. Next week he will start getting Physical Therapy twice a week which I am excited about...plus with this Utah program they now want us to try to do it four times a day...if only there were 36 hours in a day instead of 24! Once again I want to thank the many prayer warriors that continually pray for Luke. God has already brought Luke farther than anyone thought he could go - and I, for one, believe He is just getting started! Please continue to pray for Luke's restoration - God hears and "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." Matt: 21:22..BELIEVE!

More new things...

Luke continues to do new things this week..Praise God and all of you who continue to pray without ceasing! This week he is making new sounds with his mouth...a clicking sound. We still do not have any words so please pray for words to come soon. In the stages of speech, sounds that mean different things comes before words, and that is where he is at now. We can definetly tell if it is a happy sound or mad sound. He is also becoming an expert at pinching food in his fingers and putting it in his mouth, and does great with a sucker. One of my favorite things is when you ask him for a hug, he will now also give you a few pats on your back:) He is helping us out at home with grabbing doors and closing them on the way out, and also pushing the button to open the garage door. This week with the flash cards instead of giving him 2 cards and telling him to pick one, I made the questions harder. I would tell him to pick the card of the animal that swims in water (fish,) or the card of the animal Mommy does not like (mouse.) He gets them correct every time. His left side is responding great to the increase in activity we are doing. I really think it will be moving on its own in no time. The picture is Luke on his old Big Wheel at Nana and Papa's house. It shows how good he is holding up his head. Thanks so much for the continued prayers and support...please pray for continued restoration in Luke's brain and for speech and movement to come soon! But blessed are those who trust in the LORD and have made the LORD their hope and confidence. Jeremiah 17:7 NLT We are so blessed to be slowly but surely getting our Lukey back. Believe!