January 5 Update

Today was Davin's first official day of therapy. He is only working for four or five hours a day instead of the normal six, due to many families canceling. I am not sure why that is, but that is the word that we got. Davin's schedule starts with an early breakfast and he is to the gel-pack room at 7:40. These are warm, bean-bag type things that go on different parts of your body to relax certain muscles. For Davin, they were on his ankles, knees, and maybe his hips. Each child was different and the therapist seemed to know just what to do for every single child, even though it was the first day. Davin was feeling pretty good about the therapy after the gel packs and then we went to the gym at 8. He started with a massage, so he was really pretty happy. After the massage, he was put into the Adeli suit and then the hard work began. Davin worked on head control as well as isolating one part of his body and making it make a big motion. This is very hard for him to work against his strong tone that he has used all of his life. He has always used his extremities all at once, and it is very hard to isolate them and move them. It was work enough that he had to try to keep his tone from coming into play during all of these exercises. He worked with the suit on until 10, and then went into the stander for twenty minutes. From there, he went into a room that has a cage. There are bungee cords attached to the cage and he is in a belt that is attached to the bungee cords. In this room, he worked on kneeling and standing and trying to get up by himself. He goes into a different room that also has cages. In this room, they attach pulleys to the cage and ropes run through the pulleys and are attached to Davin's arms and legs. The other end of the rope is attached to a weight and Davin does various weight lifting type exercises. After all of that, he was pretty tired, and took a nap. After lunch Davin had a class with some other kids that worked on some sensory things. They used clay and paint, and things like that. He enjoyed this. He also has a music class one day a week, and an art class one day a week. The only day that Davin has off is Sunday except this Sunday he will have therapy to make up for missing a full day due to everyone's travel delays in getting here.

The food here is quite different, especially breakfast and dinner. Breakfast is usually yogurt, bread, and a small amount of cereal poured for us in a bowl. Davin could eat all three of the bowls of cereal himself. There is always small pieces of lunchmeat and a slice of tomato. Lunch is their big meal with soup and always a plate brought out for us with a different meal every day. Alan commented that everyone is equal here. Davin and Alan receive the same portions and there are no seconds. Bread is served at every meal and dinner is always very light. One night, we had a couple small pieces of lunchmeat, and we each had one fried egg. The food has been pretty good, just different. There are restaurants, but it hasn't seemed worth it to venture out on the ice-covered roads. And we do mean ice covered.

For those of you who have asked about calling, the number here is 48 (country code) -94-31-89-210or212. Most people will have to dial 0-11 first in order to make an international call. This number will give you the front desk which will probably answer in Polish. Ask for room 106. In Polish that would sound (but not be spelled) like yeden, zeh-ro, shesh-ch. If that is not enough to discourage you and you still want to give us a call, we are usually in our room 6:00 - 7:30 AM or 1:00 - 3:00 PM your time.