The crash

Its a given that prolonged periods of time in the hospital are physically hard. The lack of exercise causes lots of things like muscle weakness, bone softening, etc. As I think about Nathan's current state, I'm really just surprised at how fast he went from weak but not so drastic to really, really weak. When Mom was here last week, at the beginning of the week, he was helping decorate the Christmas tree. He was getting down on the floor to put ornaments on. Getting up and down, moving around the room up and down off a stool, walking normally, and just in general still physically doing well. Before Mom left he started eating less and his activity levels crashed. He started limping and soon he was just not wanting to be active at all. He started PT and OT this Monday. Since then he is *so* much more active, his limping is much less frequent and sometimes not there at all, and he is eating more and wanting to play and do more. So he has made great strides in the right direction...and he still can't get up off the floor without something to grab with both hands and pull himself up with. Its just shocking to me how far his physical abilities crashed so quickly. I guess he had weakened but was still doing some fraction of the normal stuff. Then he lost motivation to be up and around and over the course of a few days he just bottomed out.

The single thing that has turned his disposition around the most and been the best for him physically and emotionally has been starting on physical and occupational therapy this week. He still doesn't want to exercise with me, but he loves to "play" with the therapists. They won't be in over the weekend so I'll try and just maintain things by getting walks in and spending some time in the playroom.