Lots to do

We have been very busy, which makes it harder for me to post regular updates on here. But I am trying to keep you all posted as often as I can!

Yesterday Ryan still wasn't feeling the greatest, but I convinced him to go to his therapy sessions anyway. He feels like this week has been one giant leap backwards on his progress mentally and physically, but we were still able to see improvements in some areas. And Ryan appreciates all of the encouragement and prayers from everyone!

In speech therapy, Ryan started out with the challenge to name 10 foods that begin with the letter P. After naming about five foods, Ryan felt stuck, so his therapist encouraged him to narrow down his search to smaller food categories (like breakfast foods, or fruits). That helped him, and he was able to think of ten foods. The next exercise he was asked to do was also difficult, but he did well! It was this: go through the alphabet, naming an object that begins with each letter, but alternate that with counting. For example--apple, 1, bear, 2, cat, 3...etc. Ryan made it all the way through the alphabet! After that his therapist had him practice alternating between two cognitively demanding tasks, only spending 20 seconds on each one before switching to the other one. Here are snapshots of the two tasks that Ryan was alternating between for this challenge.

Other exercises that Ryan completed for speech therapy include unscrambling sentences, telling how two objects are alike and how they are different, and explaining step-by-step processes.

His physical therapy was almost the same routine as the session last week, but Ryan seemed to have a harder time with the balance challenges. He was frustrated and exhausted by the end of that session.

Ryan's occupational therapist took it a little easier on him, but still challenged him. We forgot to ask about the results from the driving assessment she did with Ryan last week, so we won't know about that until Tuesday. But Ryan's main tasks for this therapy session involved focusing and vision. He had a few sheets of paper that were filled with a variety of capital letters, and he was asked to circle all of one particular letter (all of the E's). Then he had another sheet of capital letters where he was asked to circle every instance that two different letters were printed (all of the H's and R's). On another paper, he needed to guess where the center of each line was without a ruler (see below).

Next week looks like it will be another busy week, and hopefully it will bring more answers. Ryan had some blood drawn today to look into possible causes for his low profusion, restless legs, and interrupted sleep cycle. We'll know more after those results come in. We were also able to get a CD of the images from Ryan's second MRI, but we haven't had the time to look at them yet. Hopefully we'll be able to share some "before and after" shots soon!

We are really enjoying every moment we get to spend with Ryan. Today Ryan and I took the dogs for a walk together, and worked on a couple more small projects that needed to be done. Ryan spent quite a bit of time helping Becca learn to sound out words, which was very wonderful for me to watch! 💜 Tell your family you love them every chance you get! Don't take the simple moments for granted!