Hello Brian here.   I am with Elizabeth at the hospital and what an exciting day it was.  

This morning I was able to attend Elizabeth’s physical therapy session and watch her walking.  Before walking we had to attach her brace which give her some support for her left leg.   The brace is like a ski boot which does not allow any bending of the foot.   The Physical Therapist informed me that when she gains strength in her knees they will place a hinge on the the brace to allow bending of the foot.  I will place some video online soon – until then - here are some pictures.

 
I love this picture - you can see how much heart she’s putting into her recovery.
 
At this time and for the near future her walking needs to have a spotter – because Elizabeth knees can just buckle at anytime.

Also as a special treat –  Elizabeth’s teacher and fellow students came to visit her.   It was a surprise and you should have seen her face!




Jennifer’s Aunt Grace and Uncle Steve also came visiting – and we played the game of Trouble.


Later in the evening she worked with the Physical Therapist on walking on crutches an dealing with stairs.  

5 Things I Am Thankful For

1)  Elizabeth walked unassisted today across the gym floor!

2) I can borrow an hospital lap top in my room!

3)  I was in the mood for Chinese and a bunch of other mom’s were ordering

4) I ran out of books to read today and another mom just finished reading and lent me the book I wanted to read next.

5) The hospital providing recreation nites for the kid’s to do in the evenings.

Obviously the best blessing was the first and I’m so sorry to say I didn’t get to see it for myself!  I’m feeling a bit under the weather today and went to the other physical therapy sessions but not this one. So amazing- when we were given the diagnosis of “spinal cord stroke” the doctor’s really had no idea how much Elizabeth would recover, it was just wait and see.   The Lord sure isn’t making us wait long!

I am so grateful for all of you who are blessing us in so many ways!  Your prayers though are our biggest blessing-look how they are being answered.   Thank you.

Jenn

Hello Brian here.    I had to go into work on Saturday so I drove down afterwards to stay at the hospital with Elizabeth.    When I showed up my parents and my brother Kevin from Ireland (Danielle is Kevin’s wife) were visiting Elizabeth.  We had a great time – and Elizabeth learned a few old stories about her old man.

Also this weekend Jennifer’s Mom, Monique and Megan visited.

The girls

Elizabeth took this picture of her Mimi. 

The girls are playing tic-tac-toe on a talking turtle’s stomach, in the interactive children’s room.

Playing the harp with the invisible strings.

Two things I noted while I was visiting.   First that Elizabeth was able for the first time to tie her night-time hair scarf.  Second she was able to open a small carton of milk.    Clearly her hand coordination has improved – thank God.    As each day goes by I am getting more and more optimistic about her recovery!   

Brian 

Hello Brian here, I am down in New Brunswick with Elizabeth.   Today we had PT (Physical Therapy) and Elizabeth did great.   For the second day this week she worked on walking with a walker.   On Monday she took about five steps and Jennifer was delighted.   Today she walked from the PT room all the way to the front lobby and back (300 steps in total)!    The Physical Therapist was surprised and wanted to know what Elizabeth as been eating.   She told her “hot dogs and french fries”.    
BTW the other day they casted her leg for a long brace for her left leg – now they have to reorder it to have it shortened, because of  recent improvement!



Another bit of progress – was an ever-so-slight movement in her left toe.   I told the Physical Therapist, and she asked Elizabeth to show her.   You could see Elizabeth’s face tighten – and nothing moved.   The Physical Therapist then moved her foot into a better position, and had her try again.   The Therapist then confirmed what I saw – that is there is some movement.   Yes!

Last night Elizabeth and I watched the 1977 movie “Wilma”. 

Wilma is the true story of Wilma Rudolph who was born with a bad left leg only to grow up and win three gold medals in the 1960 Olympic games.  Elizabeth really liked the movie.    

Thank you for your continued prayers. 
Brian

Edit:  Two weeks ago they tested Elizabeth’s grip on both of her hands with a measuring device (Hydraulic Hand Dynamometer).  As you know these last two weeks Elizabeth’s grip has improved.   Well today the retested her and gave us the stats of her improvement.   The measurements showed that in the last two weeks the right hand has doubled in strength and the left hand has seen an 5 fold increase in strength!  

There was also a pinching measurement device that they did – but they did not have this device available to them today  – so they said they would test her pinching tomorrow.

Hello my name is Queila Rodrigues and I am a friend of the Hanleys.   For the last three weeks, while Elizabeth has been in the hospital,  several families have been providing meals for Megan and Monique and who ever is home (Brian or Jennifer).   If you are willing to help, I have placed a post regarding this effort on a blog located here (http://dinnerhelp.blogspot.com/).  

God Bless,
Queila

Edit: If you cannot (or wish not to) access the calendar, please feel free to call and I will be happy to communicate available dates to you over the phone.  Queila 973-265-8861 queila@optonline.net

Monday

Hi!  It’s me.  Isn’t awesome news about her leg! (see last post)  Can’t wait until her physical therapist sees her today!

Again if I have unsubscribed to you please don’t take it personally and please read why a couple posts back.

Last night was sooo cool!  I met Suzanne (SmileNJ) from Xanga. 

Suzanne is more fun then a barrel full of monkeys!

For those of you who aren’t part of Xanga, she is a really wonderful Christian lady who I “met” here in Xanga world about 2 1/2 -3 years ago.  We often commented on each other blogs and became friends.  Suzanne stopped regularly blogging on Xanga about a year ago though we kept in touch on and off. 

Well, she read my blog about being here in this hospital in New Brunswick and asked if I wanted to meet her because she was right next door at another children’s hospital with Johnny her son.   Well, I was real sorry to hear that Johnny was in the hospital again but boy, I was so excited to meet her in person!

We met in the lobby of her son’s hospital.  It was awesome!  She is just as sweet,lovely and pretty in person as on her blog.  We talked for a little over an hour.  It was just such a blessing.  I might get to see her again on Tuesday!

Well, the downstairs Cafe just opened and I am in desperate need of a cup of coffee.

I will try to post later with more news on Elizabeth.

Again I am just blown away by how many people are reading this blog now and praying for my dear girl.  Thank you so much.

Jenn

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous:  but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.”

Psalm 34:19

Brian Here! Just returned from the hospital.   Elizabeth continues to improve – but the best news is the movement in her left leg.   Last night - while she was getting ready for bed, (with some difficulty) Elizabeth was able to bend her left knee.  She did it several times!    Praise God!    Below is a picture of her showing off;

My parents visited this week also my sister Tara and her son Jimmy, and Glenn from the church we have been attending.   


Today – being the Lord’s Day we used the Meditation Room for a worship service (it was the first time this room was used).  The room had good acoustics and the sound of the singing really filled the room.

Psalm 47:6 “Sing praises to God, sing praises: sing praises unto our King, sing praises.”
 

Hi!  I’m actually posting for the first time from the hospital.  I am so glad I can do this because I will be able to post much more regularly myself!  But in order to do this, I had to unsubscribe from a bunch of you. 

I will try to explain this so it makes some sense.  Everytime I tried to get to my blog from the here (the hospital)  I couldn’t get on because it said I had too many “questionable words” meaning inappropriate words.  Unfortunately one of those questionable words is “G*d”.  So when I refer to our heavenly Father I will have to type “G*d”.  There were others on my site too, (but I have no idea which) .  My loving hubby, worked real hard on this problem for me all day yesterday.  When working on my public page he found out if he hid all my subscriptions that I could see my public page but I still couldn’t see my private page where I would post from.   He didn’t know how to hide my subscriptions on that page so the only way to get my subscriptions off the page was to unsubscribe to my subscriptions.  You will see that I still have some subscriptions, Brian instead of getting rid of the whole list at once just tried getting rid of half my list and it worked.  If you were on the half that he unsubscribed me from I’m sorry and definitely nothing personal and I have no idea if your blog name had a “questionable” word in it or not.

Brian just cut the list in half and it worked.  So if you were on the top half of my list I have temporarily unsubscribed from you.  I do have a list of  you and when this is all over and we are home again I will resubscribe.  Until then know that I still care and will be back as soon as I can.  I hope this explanation made some sense.

Well, I wanted to post some more but this explanation took me awhile.  I gotta get back to Elizabeth.  I will post again later.

Jenn

Hello Brian here.   I stayed at the hospital Wednesday night and most of Thursday - it wonderful to see Elizabeth in a good mood.   Here’s a couple pictures.

Elizabeth with her (great) Aunt Marge.

Don’t worry – Elizabeth did not catch the rare yellow polka-dot face disease.   They are only stickers.  Elizabeth clowns around with one of her therapist. 

Jennifer has informed me that while sitting on a mat yesterday, Elizabeth was able to move the upper part of her left leg enough to lightly kick a ball.   Jennifer was so caught off guard she had to ask if that was her left leg or was Elizabeth merely using her hip to throw her leg.   This would be the first time we would have confirmation that there is life in the left leg.    The physical therapist confirmed that it was indeed her leg!   

I should also mention that Elizabeth mentioned to me that her right hand has made some improvement in the last few days.   Praise G*d!

This evening I’ll be at the hospital and to give Jennifer a much-needed break.  While Elizabeth has her own room – I was told that there is a lot of noise and the door being opened makes sleeping difficult.   I don’t think Jennifer has had much sleep in the last three weeks – which doesn’t help.    Please keep her in prayer as she drives back and forth from New Brunswick.

Brian