Sam goes West...

We had 3 good things occur in December. Sam was evaluated by Dr. Lima from Portugal during his visit to RIM at Wayne State University in Detroit (where Sam had Therapy). They were very impressed with his crawling ability and especially his new ability to crawl backwards. They did test his thighs and calves and although he could feel the prick in both calves (which may be new) there were no new muscles firing down in his legs. Dr. Lima said he would be very suprised if he had changes down there already and would not anticipate muscles firing down there for quite some time yet. Sam continues to improve use of his lower abs as there appears to be more new muscle activity there.

After that session we took off to Brekenridge Colorado for the Hartford Disabled Ski Classic where members of disabled USA ski team were present doing time trials for the upcoming olympics as well as teaching / inspiring other people with disabilities to ski. Sam had 2 instructors assigned to him each day to teach him how to downhill ski independently. He progressed far enough to go unassisted all they way down the mountain on a blue run. There were 700 disabled people attending including 300+ from the wounded warriors (www.woundedwarriors.org) which were military men and women who were disabled in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was a great experience for him. See the pictures!





The 3rd cool thing was that Sam started rehab in RIM's new center in Rockford. Wow, what are we going to do with the extra 15 hours a week? We won't be getting up at 5:30 anymore that's for sure. That has been going well and Sam seems to be adjusting to the new setting and people. He misses the staff in Detroit.

That's the latest. We are blessed to continue seeing slow improvement. Thanks again for thinking of Sam by viewing his site.