Blog Award

I was sooooo surprised to receive notice that our MissysCpJourney Blog had won the most Progressive blog award from ABR.
While always wanting to do a blog, so we could share information with others, Advanced Biomechnical Rehab provided the support and incentive to get started. The award entitles us to receive one months free ABR machine rental, which is about $350 worth.
Our statistics have been really interesting with over 1100 hits in our short existence and the number of OS visitors.
Thanks everyone for sharing in our blog and the joy Missy brings to our lives.

Another winning Photo

Missy entered some more of her photos in another local show last weekend and had a wonderful result. The photograph section was very large with over 100 entries in the Colour and B & W section for school students <18yrs. Missy won the B & W section with the included photo, how exciting - she is thinking how to spend the $20 prize money.

Toothless Terror

Missy returned to school this term - minus her two front teeth. Two teeth gone in two days with some help from her constant fiddling with them.
Lucky Missy's smile is still just as big. H-Ho is a bit concerned and after looking at Missy's smile she said "I don't want my teeth to fall out mum".

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

They had to be pink

Recently Missy was prescribed glasses, after seeing an ophthalmologist for 7 years, her intermittent squint was improving, however she now had become a little short sighted over the last 12 months.
With prescription in hand, I knew a visit to choose lens and frame could be interesting. After trying on every pair of kids glasses in the shop, she had choose a pink pair of course, which I think look very pretty.
She has been wearing them well and they are only on for short periods during the day and when she needs to read the whiteboard or watching the TV from a distance.

Inclusive Learning Conference - Gold Coast here I come

After attending the Spectronics Conference in 2008 and the fact that Missy will soon be looking to upgrade her current communication device(Dynavox DV4) I was keen to get back to the biannual conference.

The Inclusive Learning Conference(hosted by Spectronics) attracts very highly regarded experts in the field of AAC and it's associated technology, the four days are jammed packed with 7 concurrent sessions running throughtout most of the days, which can actually make it difficult to choose which to attend.

After applying to a couple of service providers for sponsorship to attend the conference, I was successful with a local respite provider who was able to provide the flexibility to change respite to carer education.

Flying and staying with another mum at the venue should make for a great time, while my brain won't get a rest, it will be a break from the day to day rountine of school runs, therapy, homework, cooking and cleaning.

Easter ABR

We have a busy Easter ahead of us with the ABR Asia team arriving at Easter for the first ABR clinic of 2010. This clinic will provide us an opportunity to review our soft ball rolling technique that we have been doing on Missy since Nov 09. We were advised the soft ball rolling technique was to be a priority, so with only getting in an hour in per day, there hasn't been much time for the other excercises. Missy continues to wear the machine 6 nights a week. We have seen some further improvements in Missy's balance and increaased definition in her thorax since the last clinic.
So while we are attending the clinic,we will take the kids to Royal Easter Show where we have 7 chooks entered. H-Ho and Missy have already checked out the website to pick some showbags.
So it will be a busy and varied Easter period and are thankful of family and friends who will stay here to look after things.
Some photos show H-Ho technique and when Missy won't let go of her toys to put machine on.

The Photos were winners

At Missy's first photographic competition, (our local ag show) she was very sucessful winning the Novice under 12 yrs section and the Novice Portrait section. She was very proud to see her pictures displayed at the show and of course H-Ho to see her face on the wall.
Hoping to encourage her interest by entering in some other shows and maybe she might take up the role of photographer for the newly proposed school newspaper.
Not only Missy's photos were winners but our chooks did very well also with one of our roosters taking out champion of the show.
The girls also enjoyed the cha cha ride, Missy's found the ride and wasn't going to be happy until she got on, despite us telling her watch just how fast it goes(actually that just made her want it more). As we have experienced before the ride operators were very helpful and obiliging, they were so pleased to see her enjoying the ride so much and calling out more as it slowed.
All in all a great day out at the show which was followed up with two of her friends coming over for a birthday sleepover. They had a great time.