Yesterday Al took 8 steps in the parallel bars. He is doing amazing with his balance, during standing. His sitting balance is very good. Unfortunately I missed his milestone because I was discussing him with his covering physician.

Al's physician is on holidays, so his covering physician now was my boss at the time of my stroke and he is also a friend. We had some very frank discussion about Al's surgery and future prognosis. Having reviewed Al's pre and post chart and surgical record this Dr. said we absolutely made the right choice for surgery. We had an unfortunate out come plain and simple. In his opinion the size and position of Al's tumour was a fatal stroke waiting to happen. He also emphasized that it is too early to predict any outcomes.

Al's stroke was small but deep and historically these types of strokes can have surprising delayed results. The fact that the arm has not responded as yet is not a good sign. But I won't be discouraged by this because in my own experience my arm was the last to respond and at 6 ½ years post stroke now I still see improvements in my hand which has not yet had a full recovery. It doesn't hinder me from doing things, I just do things differently now.

Bridget and I visited tonight with the hope of staying to watch a movie but Al was just too tired so we left him to sleep. Healing a brain is exhausting and even more so when you add in all the new physical efforts.