We praise God that we are able to report continued improvements for Robbie.
His speaking is getting more distinct and understandable. He speaks far more than he uses the spell board right now. One favorite word he likes to say is “antidisestablishmentarianism”. That usually throws off most people who are trying to understand him but he gets a kick out of it. He is able to eat more as well - in very small amounts and very slowly. Yesterday’s food highlight was during speech therapy, he ate a few small bites of pepperoni pizza (see picture).
He has also been doing excellent in Physical Therapy. A few days ago, they tried to get him to do “quadraped” (stand on hands and knees). He needed a lot of help and he cried through most of it as it hurt him. He was only able to do it for a minute. Two days ago, they took him into therapy and tried to prepare him to be willing to try it again. They took him off of his wheel chair onto the “table” and they turned away for a moment to put the wheel chair up. When they turned around, Robbie surprised them all when he had already rolled over and lifted himself up on his hands and knees. He was laughing and started doing some push-ups and crawling around. Standing is still too painful to do much of as his toes are so curled under that he ends up standing on his toes and his heels still do not touch the ground.
Yesterday they got a motorized wheel chair for him to use for a few days and he is just loving it. He runs around controlling it with a joystick and he is able to sit up quite a while on it [see pic]. He likes getting into an open spot and doing donuts.
He is sleeping through the night so well that his Oma and Opa (Tanja’s parents) have begun sleeping in the room instead of staying awake watching them. They have been such an awesome blessing taking the night shift for all these weeks. Robbie loves being with them [see pic].
Robbie continues to be so amazingly joyful throughout all of these challenges. We believe God is answering your prayers by accelerating his recovery. Please pray that he can move off of medications fast enough to be able to go home to Fayetteville soon! Thank you for your continued prayers!
Ken and Tanja