Zoe walking

Yesterday, as it turned out, was an unexpectedly good day. We had an appointment with the equipment vendor to drop off a sample VASI stander and Pony walker for Zoe. The stander is to promote weight bearing and trunk strength- the Pony walker is to provide Zoe with a means of mobilization and getting around her world. We don't anticipate her having the strength to walk independently or with a more traditional walker/gait trainer for some time, but want to be able to give Zoe a way to independently get around until then. We had anticipated she would hate the stander initially, and maybe just kind of sit there in the Pony walker. Our unrealistic ideal parent dreams, of course, were that she would immediately start using the walker to move around wherever she wanted, but we didn't really expect that. Well, to everyone's great surprise, that is almost exactly what she did. After happily being in the stander and playing at our coffee table for about 15 minutes she indicating she was tired so we put her in the walker. Her very first time using it she was able to move across the room to where I was sitting several times. Lucky for us Genevieve managed to arrange to come home from work early and arrived just made it in time to see Zoe's first steps! Later that day when her OT was here Zoe was able to move twice across the room to deliberately look at our fish tank-she seemed fascinated by them. Everyone was amazed by how well she did, and our parental dreams were, on this occasion, fulfilled. It was still really hard for her, and she is very unsure about initiating the movement, but it is a great start!

This video is from today, her third trial at the walker. The lady in the edge of the picture is Riane, our wonderful respite worker who was able to come in this morning to give me a bit of a break. Genevieve was hard at work and missed the fun.

The song is "I'm gonna be (500 miles)" by The Proclaimers.

Those of you who know Zoe, or know our 1p36 kids, know how amazing a moment this is. It happened 4 days before her second birthday. We are so proud and excited. For Zoe to be able to move herself around and seek out what interests her is a huge goal for us, and this is a huge step toward that.

The other excellent piece of news the equipment person gave us is that as this is Zoe's first equipment claim the Ontario government agency which pays for 75% of equipment costs (Assistive Devices Program or ADP) would likely have no problem approving the claim for the walker and stander (and hence paying for it). The equipment company would be confident in ordering the stuff as soon as we paid them the outstanding 25% (which we then claim back from our extended insurance coverage). So that will mean the waiting period, once we decide for sure what we want, should only be about four weeks at the most. This is very exciting!

So Zoe is still sick, and not drinking much, but we are very encouraged by how well Zoe is doing with these new challenges. We are so proud of her.