"Best day yet" says Przemek

"Best day yet" from Przemek is a huge compliment. He works her hard and praises only when really deserved. After the end of last week and not doing her best during walking, Przemek decided to switch things up a bit to see if he could get more out of her walking. He decided to do massage and then straight into walking followed by the strength training. We were going to do all this today and I wasn't going to watch any of it to see if we could get her best to come out. It worked and worked really well. By putting walking first you aren't dealing with lack of concentration (because usually she has already worked out for 2 hours by this point and let's face it who could still concentrate at that point) and fatigue. Przemek said that she did 2 perfect rounds with the walker and could have kept going. She did 2 rounds with both parallel bars on and 2 perfect rounds with right cane and left parallel bar. He asked Josie after the 2 parallel bars if they could do one cane and one bar and she so agreeably said sure. He was saying that she was so proud of herself she kept hugging him. He was secretly proud that she did this (strong Polish man that doesn't want to be too affected by his patients...can't help it with her!!). He tried to turn on the video camera for me because he said he was sure I wouldn't believe it. He never got it on because he was scared to break the concentration. WAY TO GO JOSIE GIRL!! I will spy from the window tomorrow and post some video. At the end of her session today when I went in to get her she was beaming from ear to ear. She even sat up and reached out to hug Przemek one more time.

I want to give you a taste of how remarkable this center is. Everyone thinks that we came from so far away but really we are one of their closer patients. In the clinic currently are 2 Saudi Arabians, Egyptian, Argentinian, Mexican, Italian, 1 from New York and 1 from Arizona. I don't know everyone during the morning times, but that is amazing. 5 therapist from Columbia will be coming to be trained in this method next month and Izabella spends most of the year traveling internationally to train therapist in their countries. The US better catch on quickly (better yet insurance companies better get on board). You can rehab people in a quarter of the time with this method. It would end up saving money. Susan our PT at Childrens LA says this is the way therapy is moving to. I hope so. In saying that it is remarkably international they also come in herds. This poor little Saudi girl today who is fairly damaged had 8 people standing over her while she was trying to work out mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, 4 siblings. From my understanding this is typical of the Middle Eastern families. Poor Chris the therapist took it all in stride with everyone telling her what to do. That would motivate me to walk or run away. Actually she isn't even close to walking. The Egyptian girl only had 3 people with her today. Hopefully that even decreases. These kids are working so hard I hope the families can really appreciate that. Don't know why I decided to share all that unimportant information. I just find it, well, fascinating??!

We are off to bed and up for Chickadee practice in the morning. The big show is this Saturday on her birthday. Lots of practicing to do before then!! She got to use a nose plug for the first time today and loved it. So funny looking but effective. I will try to get some pictures tomorrow. They want them to wear their hair in 2 pony tails for the show. Hard to get half a head of hair and half a head of wig into 2 pony tails. I will have to get very creative with this...yikes. On that odd note, goodnight and God bless, Jenny and Josie