Some School Photos

Thought I'd share some of the therapy pics, Alex is doing so well!

Alex here keeping his balance while walking and kicking the die.

They put his left arm in this sling to remove the effects of gravity, enabling him to target his shoulder muscles. His goal here is to swing his arm and hit the ball the therapist is tossing.

No More Needles!

This past Monday, October 18th, we were able to meet with Alex's pediatric stroke specialist and the rheumatologist. They showed us the pics of his MRA (magnetic resonance angiogram) and gave us his test results. They also agreed that he no longer needs the blood thinner injections, hooray!!!

When Alex was in the hospital this summer the MRA showed that of the four arteries going into his brain, his two carotid arteries (the ones you feel for a pulse at) were completely blocked (see posts below). The most recent MRA showed that his left carotid artery has since opened back up but his right artery is still blocked. Even with this blockage the experts felt it was safe to take him off of the blood thinners and just maintain his progress with low-dose aspirin. There is the possibility that his right artery may never open up. His brain may rebuild the artery with a different route. There's really no way to tell what is going to happen, so we wait and see.

The antiphospholipid antibody results were also quite good. A normal result is below 15, indeterminate is 15-20 and Alex's current level is 19. His level this summer was 58, so things are getting better!

Alex will be getting a more traditional angiogram sometime in the next 3-6 months. They will be sedating him more fully for this procedure, even requiring intubation, so this is a little scarier but he has come bouncing out of the past sedations so well that we know he will be fine! This procedure involves inserting a dye into his arteries then taking x-rays with the MRI machine, which will light up his blood vessels much more clearly for the docs and show them if there are any issues. We are confident that things will continue to progress!

MRI and Blood Tests Coming up...

This Friday Alex will be sedated and undergo an MRI at the Stollery to determine if there are any remnants of the blood clots that he had this summer. Two weeks ago he had bloodwork drawn to test for the syndrome that caused the clots. On Monday we will be seeing the doctors to hear the results and are hoping and praying that they will declare Alex fully healed. It would be so wonderful to not have to inject him with is needles anymore, even though he is such a trooper about it (doesn't even complain anymore, just watches us do it and then moves on).

A quick update on his therapy: we are now working on fine-tuning Alex's walking so that it is not so jolted and so that he can begin to run soon! His arm's movement is coming much more slowly but this is expected since there is a lot you can do with one arm, he's not very motivated to move the other arm.

Last Friday Alex was the first kid to test run the Glenrose's new MILLION dollar walking machine. He was so patient while they took the 20+ minutes to strap him into the thing, everyone learning as they go. There were eight therapists and the guy from the company that built the machine either helping strap Alex in or watching and taking notes. He is the smallest person that can possibly fit into it. It's technically called some sort of Swedish sounding name, but I've named the machine CARL (Cool Automated Robot Legs). I've got a video and some pics on my phone and as soon as I've figured out a way to get them off my phone and onto my computer I'll post them.