Hi Everyone,
Don’t be afraid to try something new. The ark was built by amateurs and the Titanic was built by experts! ~ Anonymous
Corey and I continue to try something new everyday. Some of our new trials include holding onto a counter to balance her stance, eating soup, twirling spaghetti on a fork, and opening water bottles.
If she gets to the point where she needs assistance, her normal response is to politely ask, “Mom can you help me hold this”. She typically will forget that her left hand and arm are getting stronger. Depending on the moment, if I encourage her to use her left side, she will erupt arguing “it does not work”! “I can not do it”! I patiently wait for the tantrum to pass and calmly state, “Hmmm, I bet you can”. “Go ahead, prove me wrong”.
Whether it’s a bottle she wants to open, a yogurt container that requires one last scoop to collect the final bite or opening a zip loc bag that holds her afternoon snack, she is not happy with my encouraging her independence and she lets me know it!
Corey’s brow speaks louder than her clenched lips ~ she’s mad. She stares at her left hand, arches her back as she wills her left elbow to raise her hand from her lap. She uses her right hand to assist as her fingers open in a fan like motion. The movement of her hand and arm to complete her challenge takes several minutes. I sit motionless and do not make an effort to help (mostly to see if she really can do it by her self). The time it takes for her to move incrementally seems endless when suddenly she successfully completes her task using both hands simultaneously.
She relaxes her brow and shares that famous smile; pride lights up her face. She did it…by her self!
I often question whether or not we are “doing the right things” to help Corey regain her independence. There is no ‘Living with TBI’ handbook. We not only live one day at a time, we’re practicing the “wing it” method. I’m sure if there was a handbook that would be a chapter! My philosophy is ‘What’s the worst that could happen…we find out what we still have to work towards’? In the meantime, our crazy strategies and unorthodox techniques will continue.
Noah had no idea what he was doing either but he had to trust that his design was guided too. We don’t need to be an expert to have great expectations, xoxo