CIT - Finished... for now...

Well, I guess we have come catching up to do!

The un-casting went very well. The orthotist tried to put a piece of aluminum between Summer and the cast so that he could use the cast saw. It was too hard to tuck in… so I suggested that he hang on a second. I got a grip on Summers upper arm and applied gentle, constant pressure, pulling the cast off. Then Marc sawed the cast, and made it so that we could put it back on with some tape or Velcro, for therapy. – so that was pretty painless! Summer again requested a pink cupcake for her after-cast-treat.

We headed to Toronto on Saturday morning and stayed with Barb and Laurie in Bolton. Summer provided the usual entertainment before heading to bed and letting the adults play a few hands of cards.

Sunday was a disaster… Summer woke up with a cold and developed a fever during the day. We managed to control the fever, but it wasn’t looking good for her AHA on Monday. We spent most of the day sleeping or watching a DVD. – I think the Barney DVD is now worn out…

Monday, Summer woke up feeling much better, though not 100% by any means. No fever though. I called the Follow Up Clinic to see if they would still see her (hospitals have very strict infection control rules these days). Thankfully, they said that as long as Summer felt ‘up to it’ they would see her. So, off we went.

We bid farewell to Barb and Laurie and headed into the city.

Summer did well for her assessment. We won’t have her scores until later this week, but I saw some subtle improvements from her pre-CIT AHA. I videoed both sessions so I plan to edit them to run task to task, side by side, so that the improvements might appear more obvious.

We had a great chat with Maureen our PT. We talked about the casting period and what will be next. She said that really there are no rules and that we may want to consider continuing her 1:1 time with her teacher a few times per week, when Summer will wear her cast for a couple of hours. Don and I will explore this with her daycare to see if it is a possibility.

I showed Maureen some video of Summer eating last week so that she could see how smooth her movements have become. She was impressed and encouraged us to try to maintain this skill level through practice.

I am sure we will do the CIT again. Summer tolerated it so well. She looked forward to her therapy visitors at daycare and her 1:1 time with Jody.

Summer will receive her follow-up QUEST (Quality of Upper Extremity Skills Test) on Thursday and then in 6 weeks, both assessments again to determine retention.