Another ABR clinic

Well we are home from another ABR Clinic where we learnt some new techniques that have shown some real positive effects on other kids.
The tools have changed over the years and I must say I like the latest tools we use, they are small, easy to grab and get a bit of ABR time in easily. We got three eggs shaped balls with varying degrees of softest of gel like material.
Our main focus for our new exercises is around the shoulder girdle, with C7/shoulder blade,Upper Thoracic and mid Thoracic we also have a black cylinder of quite firm density that we are working on her elbow anterior and posterior.


I mostly do my ABR therapy at night when Missy is suppose to be going to sleep, with some of the new exercises,she is actually falling to sleep...now I need to just stay awake.

ABR Clinic in August

We will be attending another ABR Clinic in Sydney during August. After our last clinic in Nov 2010 we weren't planning to attend another until Nov 2011.
There has been some new ABR techniques added that have been proven to show great results. This is the greatest technical breakthrough that Leonid and his team have seen for the last ten years.
Leonid posted his blog about the egg and the pelvis transformation – which is of course fantastic to listen to: http://blyum.typepad.com/on_abr_and_beyond/2011/06/mind-blowing-freaking-miracle-pelvis-transformation-in-quadriplegic-cerebral-palsy.html the egg and the new ball rolling techniques are bringing a lot of very fast changes.
Even though our ABR hours are not fantastic, we may as well be using the most improved effective techniques with our time.
We have just completed our home video to send to Singapore and look forward to catching up with other families, Sarah and Jensen from ABR Asia at Sydney.

over 3000 hits

Hello
It's hard to believe Missy's CP Journey Blog has now had over 3000 hits and it's just been 12months since we started it.
Thanks to everyone who has followed Missy's Journey so far via this blog, I was hoping it is a way to stay in touch with others, share ideas, be inspired, share in celebrating Missy's life.
Stayed tune, I will write about Missy's fantastic school excursion.
Off to ABR Clinic in a few days.
Cheers

ABR continues

We have plans to attend another ABR Clinic in November at Sydney, after getting a quick update in July and attending the clinic in March. Thankfully the Clinics are much more compact these days with our videoing, prescribed exercises, workshop and training all over in 2 days. Just Missy and I will make the trip and hopefully will catch up with other families I haven't seen for some time.
Unfortunately my plans for getting lots of ABR done in the school holidays hasn't really come off, with my routines out the window and visitors.
Back to school next week, hopefully I can get back into my routine of sitting down at night and getting in my hour of ABR a night.

The Sydney Royal Easter Show

Combined with our ABR clinic was our visit to the Sydney Royal Easter Show. Added to our big day at show was our entries of poultry. Completing against people that had been breeding chooks for 40 years, we were just enjoying the opportunity to put our chooks alongside others, we never imagined we would come away with two champion Male in different breeds and other places.
The girls really enjoyed the day lasting 9.5hrs, buying their carefully studied showbag choices and riding the giant slide.

Home from our 10th ABR Clinic

10 Clinics - where has that time gone when nearly 4 years we flew to Singapore to meet Leonid and start our ABR journey to endeavour to improve Missy's physical capabilities with our long term vision for Missy to lead an independent life.

We must be up to about 12,000 ABR hours by now with still a steady flow of improvements in Missy. We still hire the machine also.

The latest clinic was held at Eastern Creek at the Chifley, the new location suited us well, nice place with good accessibility, helpful staff and it was great to have a conference room for the Clinic, I think it must be the first clinic when everyone could fit their wheelchairs into the room and not left out in the hallway for hotel guests to maneuver around.

Missy handled the hands on assessment very well this time, no tears. We had improvements in her sitting platform, her ability to weight bear thru elbows, gait and vertebral column. We were given a comparison file showing different positions from 2006 alongside 2010 photos which were really interesting, reminding us just how far we have come.

Workshop and training allowed us to revisit our technique and of course it needed brushing up. We were then given our new exercises, our priority is Missy's shoulders which can really inhibit so many day to day tasks. Once the shoulder girdle is stabilised there is a cascade effect down the arm to improve function of the elbow and hand. We were also given the Supercharge exercises(that's the one with me sitting on Missy) which also needs to be done daily.

So as usual, now that we home, we are playing with positions and times of the day when the exercises can be fit in without taking away fun time. Currently getting close two hours a day done but that's just because it's holidays. Just need to have a 28 hour day when Missy's goes back to school to keep it up.

Cheers