's Brace

[Guest guest]

Hello All )

is in great spirits - has been all day. Going to the appliance maker and

trying on the brace repeatedly as it was trimmed and adjusted was all very fine.

We were excitable and chatty and jittery with nerves. Being fitted went really

really well. Practicing sitting, standing, kneeling and lifting went well as

well. Then there was trying to leave.

Trying to get into the car, unused to not being able to bend his spine,

hit his head on the door frame. This caught us both so by surprise - that and

the nerves from the day - we both burst into throat ripping laughter. Then we

were able to get him into the car, but with the way most car seats are designed,

his bottom sank into the chair and the brace rose around him and started to

strangle him. The collar device was pushing up in the soft part of his neck

just behind the jaw bone, he sounded like he was drowning. Quickly he figured

out to put his arms straight down beside his hips and raise himself until he

could breath. It took a good fifteen minutes to figure out how to sit. I know

we could have just taken the brace off - but we were going to have to figure

this out eventually somehow.

The brace is more noticeable than I imagined. It is very noticeable at the

neck. The bar that runs up and down in front in front of his sternum is very

noticeable. The two bars that run up and down along his spine are extremely

noticeable. He looks like Reeves in his brace.

We arrived home. was eager to try a new videogame. Then began the search

for a chair that would support him well. It has to fit his legs, he can't

really sit deep because it makes the brace strangle him. Then he wanted to talk

to Chip on the phone. His room is a very brace unfriendly place. All the

comforts of his room strangle him in the brace - his favorite reading chair is

completely unusable.

By now he had had the brace on for two hours and 40 minutes. That was more than

enough for the day. Off it came, now it sits like a silent sentinel in his

homework chair.

We increase one hour a day until we are at all the after school until bed hours.

Then we wear the brace for one nights sleep. Then add an hour an evening to

that time until we cover all the non school hours awake or asleep. Then we

begin at school as well.

So the fitting went wonderfully. The brace is more than I thought it would be,

yet it is so full of promise. Actually navigating wearing the brace on a daily

basis is going to be the hard work. Hopefully with some creativity and the

undying enthusiasm for which is famous, it will just be hard and no more

than that. )

Psychically exhausted-

Yuka