The Miracle of Laughter…

January 26, 2010 | Updates

Samuel nearly drowned in July of 2005.

He didn’t smile for 6 months.

When he first started to smile again, the smiles were few and far between.

But eventually, they came daily.

This summer, he started laughing.

It was a rare thing to hear him laugh at first.

Now, he laughs daily.

Here’s a small example…

Password is museum.

Password is museum.

They say you can only heal from a brain injury for the first 6-12 months.

This laugh returned 4 years after his brain injury…4 years!

It was a long time in coming and it is music to our ears every.single.time we hear it.

A miracle…

Love,

The Jewkes

ABR Improvement Posts…#2

January 18, 2010 | Blogroll

This short video shows the improvements in Samuel’s shoulders. Originally, when you picked him up from underneath his arms, his shoulders would literally slide up to meet the bones at the base of his neck and then you could begin to lift him. In the second half of the video, you can see that his shoulders are staying more in place and he actually has a neck when we lift him from beneath his shoulders. Password is abr2.

Password is abr2.

Love,

The Jewkes

ABR Improvement Posts…#1

January 12, 2010 | Blogroll

We came back from our ABR trip with 2 hours of BEFORE video and 2 hours of AFTER video. I figured no one in their right mind (which obviously doesn’t include me) would want to watch all 4 hours of those videos. So, I’ve been taking segments of them and putting them into smaller videos for those of you who wish to see some of the improvements in Samuel. I’ll post one short video at a time so that, hopefully, you’ll have time to watch them.

You have to keep in mind that ABR is a slow process. It is a process to rebuild the structure of the body from the inside out. Samuel’s body has become very flexible over the past 4.5 years. But this flexibility is actually weakness in all his joints. One of the most obvious weaknesses is the weakness in his back where every vertebrate will collapse down onto the next one giving him no stability and no strength in his spine. This weakness makes it impossible for him to sit up - even if his brain knew how, his body is incapable of it.

So, when you watch these videos, look for subtle changes in the structure of his body. Changes that will give him the strength and stability to eventually sit on his own. We still have a very long way to go. But we knew that when we started.

This first video shows changes in the weakness in his back and his chest. Before we started ABR, I would sit Samuel on my lap, facing me, with his legs straddling me. I would hold him upright in a sitting position and then let his head fall back to nearly touch his bottom. He was most comfortable this way. He would cry until I would put him in this position. It was neutral position for him. I had forgotten that until I watched this original video again. And that is when I realized that he probably can’t even get in that position anymore and that neutral for him now is much more normal. It was a neat thing to see.

So, here is improvement video number 1. The password is abr1.

Password is abr1.

Love,

The Jewkes

November in a nutshell…

January 7, 2010 | Blogroll

November was a little less dramatic. Thank heavens.

Ben had a birthday!

This is what opening your gifts looks like when you have a little brother who thinks every birthday is his…

Hugging Aunt Kaylee - isn’t he cute handsome!

Giving the “evil eye” to anyone even thinking of eating his carmel ear of corn…

Blowing out the candles on his specially requested cinnamon roll cake and wishing he had someone to help him. Oh, wait, he does!

It was a fun party (especially for Nathan - apparently). It’s a good thing Ben is so patient with him and so willing to let Nathan be his little shadow. Ben’s a good big brother for sure.

For Thanksgiving, we visited my sister in Idaho and had a great time seeing family from all around the country. I already posted our family pictures from that fun time in a previous post. It was certainly nice to see everyone and let the kids play with all their cousins.

That was about it for November. I’m finishing up a video of some of the changes we saw in Samuel at our ABR evaluation. It’s pretty cool.

Love,

The Jewkes

October - the month from h.e.double toothpicks…

January 6, 2010 | Updates

October was a difficult month. We scheduled a trip to ABR for a personal evaluation with the founder, Leonid. The appointment was set in stone since Leonid is no longer doing personal evaluations and we only got one due to specific circumstancs. The appointment was scheduled for October 22nd.

October 6th - I buy our nonrefundable plan tickets.

October 7th - Our office secratary gives us 1 week notice that she is leaving and I find out that due to misunderstandings and scheduling issues, Tom will be out of town from the 15th thru the 20th.

October 8th - I frantically begin interviewing people to fill the secretary position.

October 12th - Wes gets the flu and I beg God to keep us healthy so we can somehow make this trip.

October 15th - I start training our new secretary in a 4 day crash course hoping she can handle the office while we are gone. At the same time, I am left to run the office by myself since Tom is out of town. It is such a juggle to find babysitters for all the kids that I literally have to write the schedule down each day so I don’t accidentally leave one somewhere he isn’t supposed to be.

October 16th - I attend a 2 day girl’s camp 2 hours from our home that I committed to attend long before this whole mess became apparent. It was fun and so worth the trip, but set me back in sleep and time, for sure.

October 20th - Samuel gets the flu and I decide that we are going on this trip no.matter.what. I stay up the entire night packing for the trip and am literally ready just in time to leave for the airport.

October 21st - We fly out towards Montreal. Our flight is late and we only have 30 minutes to make our connection. We make the plane, but our luggage does not. In Montreal, we spend 5 hours in lines for Declarations, Immigration, Customs, lost luggage and finally, a rental car. When we finally arrive at our hotel late that night, we only have with us a diaper bag, a computer bag, my purse and Samuel’s stroller. Missing are all our clothes, coats, Samuel’s crib, Samuel’s food and chargers for nearly everything - including our cell phones. We fall into bed at midnight and Samuel proceeds to scream bloody murder for the next 2 hours. At this point, I hadn’t slept in over 40 hours so in desperation, I strapped Samuel in his stroller and put a movie in my laptop for him to watch. He finally fell asleep and so did we.

(I have to note here that although I brought our GPS with us, it apparently doesn’t work outside of the U.S. When I explained our situation to the salesperson at the rental car counter, I asked him to please give me a good deal on renting one and you know what, he gave us one to use FREE for the whole week. He was most certainly the brightest moment of our day!)

October 22nd - We go for our evaluation at the ABR center after contacting our brand new secretary to let her know that our cell phones are nearly dead and we have no chargers so she is completely on her own. Oh, and we can’t get our voicemail messages because the lady on the other end of the line only speaks French. Ugh. BUT, the evaluation was great and I’ll post more on that later.

October 23rd - Our luggage arrives 30 hours after we did and just after we had returned from buying each of us a new set of clothes because 3 days in the same clothes is really yucky.

October 24th-25th - We complete our ABR training.

October 26th - We fly back home. Again, our first plane is late. Only this time, not only does our luggage miss our connecting flight, but so do we. Four hours in an airport and we are able to board another plane and finally make it home.

Moral of the story…I never, ever, ever want to go back to Montreal. Ever.

But I’ll leave you all with cute pictures from Halloween. We threw together costumes from stuff in our basement because I was fried and completely behind on everything by the time we got back and Tom had to head back out of town for another 5 days - leaving me with the office again. But, the kids had fun and I was just glad to see October on its way out for another year.

I’ll post good stuff from our evaluation with Leonid later.

Love,
The Jewkes