As you can see from the videos Shelby worked very hard on transfers today. She was extended for two weeks today which puts her release date at the 25th of June. The doctors said if she continues making progress like she has recently in the next two weeks she will likely be extended again as well. Shelby is managing her secretions so well and needs suction so little that they are changing her trach in the next two days to one that she can use to speak. On top of that her SLP would like to cork her trach sometime next week and if she can breathe just fine for 48 straight hours she will lose the trach completely. Remember how I told you the swallow study will be sometime in the future? Yeah, well the next two weeks are technically the future right. Her SLP feels that she could have a swallow study done sometime next week and wants to push for that, whether the trach is there or not. Another great day for Shelby and only good news as well. Keep praying for progress with her trach and for the casts to help her left arm as well.

Shelby had a great day today. Despite being up until around 4 am watching TV she was awake for pretty much the entire day. Her speech therapist is pushing for her to have her trach changed to a cuffless trach in the next day or two so that she may pass air over her vocal folds and start working on voice more. She is managing her secretions very well and so that is a definite possibility and soon too. Once this happens her speech therapist is encouraged that she may be able to have a swallow study done again. It won’t be anytime real soon but sometime in the not too distant future hopefully. Her arms are doing much better lately as well. She had her first serial cast taken off today and another was applied as well. The OTs continue to do E-stim on her right side and that is producing some results as well. Her right hand and fingers are much more loose than they have been. Her OT feels that her manual control of her fingers and wrist on that side is much better than it has been. Now for the big news, Shelby did a transfer from chair to mat today with almost complete control of her transfer using a sliding board. Her PT estimates she did about 90% of the first transfer all on her own. She uses her hips and arms in conjunction very well to get herself moved and she holds her balance on her own. She has also been holding her head up much better than anything I have seen before. She doesn’t lean forward as much as she used to and she doesn’t pull to the left as bad either. All-in-all today was a very good day. I would say her chances of being extended tomorrow are around 90-95%. I will let you know if this happens. She will make her fastest and best progress where she is and I would like her to get as much out of it as possible. Pray that she is extended and that she continues to make great progress. She is tough. It amazes me every day how just how strong she is.