Put One Foot in Front of the Other

300 feet ... that is 100 yards. That is an American football field. That is how far Juliana walked at therapy on Friday with a standing walker. 

It’s very impressive and so very far from where we were just a few months ago.  With her left foot flat and her balance improving, walking is becoming a reality.  Her left foot is turning out now and it is starting to get hard for her to move her foot inward now. She has been fitted for a new brace for her left foot and the sooner we get her in that, the better. She will likely not agree, of course. I think she was hoping that she was going to go from surgery to cast to walking boot to regular shoe. (Secretly I hoped that, too.) But something about the way a brain injury works, we are told to expect that this is going to be a lifetime fight to keep her muscles and tendons cooperating. What you can hope for is that she gets so functional that her muscles develop a new memory (much like her old memory) and the feet will no longer contort in or out. That seems a little too distant future for right now while we work on putting out this fire. It’s always something, although I am hopeful this particular "something" will be kept at bay. 

Her right knee is still hyperextending to compensate for the lack of range in her right ankle, so the walking that we had been doing at the house we had to forego in order to avoid damages to her other leg in a new location. I just can’t understand how this injury can continue to be a moving target. The surgery on Oct. 19 will be on her right ankle, much like what was done on the left and we will go through this process all over again, without the hospital stay hopefully.  Either way, I am dreaming of a "Walking Christmas."

Next week also begins serial casting on Juliana’s right wrist and hand. If the baclofen pump does its job and loosens up her muscles, the cast on her wrist should be very effective. I keep hoping even when more things than not have been a large degree of false hope. 

In other progress news, Juliana’s ability to feed herself has improved so much that sometimes we give her a plate of food and walk away. Not far, mind you, and we are watching cleverly trying to pretend we aren’t, but the more she detects our confidence and expectation in her, the more she seems to achieve. At least in this task that is. We have started giving her glasses of water to try drinking without a straw and her steadiness is improving. She has to compensate for the tremors by tightening her arm muscle to her body but it has given her some success. (Funny that we tell her to tighten her muscle when we just had a constant muscle relaxer permanently installed in her body. It's OK, nothing about this makes sense to us either.)

Did you ever think you would be reading about someone re-teaching their 25-year-old daughter to drink without a straw? Did you ever think you would care to? I can tell you without hesitation that I never thought I would be the one telling this type of tale, nor did I think anyone else would care about it if I did, yet here we all are. Be sure to watch the video Oak Forest Patch put together on Juliana’s progress and see what you think about how far she has come. I think you will feel very impressed but it’s also OK if you watch it and feel a little disappointed that she isn’t further along. I remember the early days post-accident very clearly how we all wanted an "instant miracle." I believed in the fairytale ending back then too. Now, after all that has transpired, I am grateful for the real ending we will get. 

WATCH: 2 Years Later: How Far Juliana Ramos Has Come

This weekend I had the pleasure of Cheyenne’s company for three days and it was like a sun shower that I guess I needed like a diabetic needs insulin. It’s so hard to get that much time together with your kids once they move out but I won’t complain because the reality is, the kids grow into independent people right about the time they are legally allowed to move our. Is that a coincidence or divine intervention? I am not sure but after that time with Cheye I felt a certain balance return to my head that I haven’t felt in a long time. I think Juliana felt the same way because to see the two of them relate to each other was comical and familiar, even if the "alpha sister" role has been reassigned. It’s not the sibling relationship that they thought they would have but just throw that on the pile of "This is the way it is NOW."  Speaking of the way it is now, let’s watch that video.

WATCH: 2 Years Later: How Far Juliana Ramos Has Come

READ:  Where it all began, in For Juliana: Almost to the Almost, One Penny at a Time, by Janet Spencer Barnes.