How I am Going

Making a habit of letting time get away from us at the moment, I told myself 12 days ago that I would make an effort to post up more often and keep you up to date a little better… but no…..

Sorry…

Again Cory has been super busy and making so much progress that it is hard to believe that only 47 days ago he had absolutely zero feeling or movement from his waist down and our expectation was for him to remain that way permanently! For a long time we have been trying to help others in the BMX world to get involved in some mental training. We spend thousands of dollars on equipment, gym and physical conditioning along with physical coaching, but rarely do we see people investing in the mental space of their children. I have zero doubt that the time and effort that we have put into mental coaching has paid massive dividends in Corys’ “Road to Recovery”. I hope that we are able to assist some other younger kids both inside and outside of our sport to do the same in the future.
On Friday the 2^nd of February Cory stood and balanced for 27 seconds completely unaided! Although this does not sound like much (7 seconds longer than previous), for us it was amazing, whilst Cory’s response was “It’s nothing I haven’t done before” haha.
Intensive Rehab has not been something Cory has really enjoyed, but he still managed to get 3 lots of 5 minutes walking on the treadmill in the Lite Gait harness system. Although the rehab team facilitate his movement, he is gaining more and more control over his legs and feet in the walking position and starting to take some of his own weight as he does so.

Later in the day Cory also had another PI 1^st (Post-Injury), he was able to transfer himself from the wheel chair to the car! This means that an out of the hospital area trip was soon on the cards, infact mere hours later a good friend and Cory and Jeldi’s business mentor Ben took us out for dinner at a local burger joint in Subiaco. It really was quite and eye opener going through the whole wheel chair/ car logistics and then the restaurant wheel chair access. Hats off to all those carving the path before us!

Although Friday was another great day, it was also a sad day with two of our favourite Spinal Team Members Dr Divya and Dr Katherine leaving us to take on other roles. We are so sad to see both of these lovely Drs leave us and we just wanted to say a massive thank you to both of you, your help and pleasant demeanours have been very much appreciated by all of us. Best of luck in your new roles and we really hope to see you again.

Saturday was a pretty interesting day, the Starlight Team were pretty amazed when Cory completed the Rubiks cube in just 50 seconds, so they decided to make a video for the Starlight TV Channel. It was pretty entertaining to watch Captain Silly (one of the Starlight Captains) trying to figure it out, in the end he pretty much gave up and got Cory to solve it for him while they filmed it to make it look like the Captain had done it too, but not well enough to make you believe he had done it….

Nanna and Poppy arrived along with Great Nanna Phyllis and we headed down to the Satellite physio room where after a few limbering stretches, Cory showed off his standing and four point kneeling skills to them.
The afternoon was spent chilling out in the park across the road from the hospital with Fliss, Nanna Liz, Uncle Greg, Aunty Naomi, while Cory’s cousins Tabitha, Abigail, Alex and Georgie had a great old time playing on the play equipment and in the water feature of the park.

Cory even transferred onto one of the swings where he and Fliss enjoyed a bit of sun and fresh air for a change.

Sunday Cory’s best mate Chad came to visit again this time with his Dad as well as Max and his Mum. Chad and his Mum have been absolutely amazing coming to visit Cory every week since he has been up here and always lighting his day up with their lovely nature. They ventured back over to get some fresh air in the park before heading back up to the MegaZone. The week finally caught up with Cory after they left as he fell asleep in his recliner back in his room. Fliss and Gary came back up to visit in the evening, with Fliss once again missing out on meeting Chad. Maybe next time Fliss.

Monday the 5^th and rehab is back in full swing after a pretty easy weekend. I-Rehab worked him really hard with the treadmill and then the Rifton Tram and he really wasn’t too happy. Cory has not really been enjoying the Intensive Rehab as it doesn’t feel natural the way that they facilitate the movements and the Rifton Tram is quite difficult to walk in in the sense that it is a little bit all over the place as it wheels along. It is also quite difficult for him to do the I-Rehab so early in the day with no limbering stretches conducted before hand.
His normal physio session was next where he got to do some of the stretches and get his range back and loosened up a little.
In the afternoon Cory met his new Drs taking over from Divya and Katherine. Dr Jane and Dr Renae who only just started today with the team.
Cory and Mum went for a St-Roll down Hay St for about 45 minutes before returning to the room and doing a few of Cory’s puzzles with the girls from Radio Lollipop.
Tuesday Cory was asked by the Hospital team to be part of the taste testing of the menu for the new Hospital, I think that he is becoming part of the furniture here….
Went down to his physio session with Christina where he stood for way longer than he had before and this time, Christina got him to do some ball work to help build his core and trunk strength back up. It was absolutely hilarious as Cory was bouncing and throwing the ball into the rebound net, before attempting a “jump shot” and collapsing onto the plinth behind him as he exclaimed

“I forgot I can’t stand”

We have a lot of people that we need to thank for supporting us and it is crazy to say that 3 of our biggest supporters have come from people we hardly knew!

Cory’s best mate Chad Guerin and his Mum Meghan who we had previously met only a couple of times have been absolutely amazing to us, also Kristy Borczuch who we had not even actually met prior to Cory’s accident (except a brief 5 minute chat per chance at a market stall 8 months ago). Kristy has been such a warm and lovely person to have keeping in contact regularly and sending so much love and hand made gifts. Thanks Kristy, we can’t wait to see you when you and Rick come to visit 🙂

And last but definitely not least. Gary and Felicity Mann, you guys have been such an important part of Cory’s journey here, it is hard to put into words how much of a positive and pleasant impact you guys have had on all of us during this journey. Gary and Fliss have been up on average I would guess, around 5 times per week since we got here. Although Gary sometimes (always…) struggles to get Fliss to leave at the end of the day hahaha.

Thanks Gary & Fliss, you guys are awesome people and we have loved getting to know you guys better 🙂

That pretty much gets you up to date til the 6^th of February, I will get you the next few days in a few more days and I will endeavour to keep you a little more up to date.

Til next time
#corycrombiecan
#muchlove

The Crombies

 

So we have not posted for a while, we have been super busy making some amazing progress!

Since we updated you all last, Cory has made some major improvements in not only his motors and sensory’s, but also in his bowel and bladder functionality. He also managed to achieve all 3 goals that he had set for himself.

Firstly we will start with the start, on the 22nd Cory was able to get himself into the 4 point kneeling position, obviously a position vital to being able to achieve his goal of taking 4 crawling paces.

He also was able to get into a 2 point kneeling position, however was not able to actually let go of the block in front of him as his trunk control simply was not there. He then transferred for the first time, from the plinth to the ground via a chair – stool – block – cushion then the ground where he did a few stretches and then back to the plinth in the same fashion.
Big Progress!

We also went for wheel chair scripting in the afternoon and the guy from Motum was really knowledgeable and great to deal with.

We were pretty surprised with how much a wheel chair costs to suit Cory, can you guess? Leave your estimate in the comments of this blog!

While we were at OT getting the chair prescription we received a call advising us that we had to move rooms from our nice double room (that we had all to ourselves) to a 5 bed shared room…
Goodbye Room With A View……
It was pretty loud in 2s as the door stays open and the Nurse station is right outside Cory’s bed where the lights don’t go off and there is no “mute” button… so needless to say Cory awoke on the 23rd quite grumpy and slow to start, but got on with his normal morning routines. On to Physio and more 4 point kneeling and onto some tricep dips and push-ups from his knees, building and regaining great strength in his upper body. OT in the afternoon and a new “temporary” wheel chair was fitted to Cory with the plan to be a little more mobile as per his “Goal #2 to get into a smaller wheelchair”. With the intention to use this new chair along with his super comfy reclining chair to transition for a week.

GOAL #2 COMPLETED

Cory then had his weekly ASIA test where he scored his first 5 (scored in his left Dorsiflexor) since his accident!
BIG PROGRESS!
24TH was off to a flyer, with Cory striking off “Goal #1 Getting Dressed Un-Aided” getting his own shorts and shirt on with absolutely no help at all followed by Divya and Katherine stopping Cory’s Tramadol. Tramadol is an Opioid pain killer that is pretty bad to stay on for and extended duration, so we were pretty happy for this to be struck off his charts.

Physio was awesome with Cory smashing “GOAL #3 Crawling 4 Paces” by an additional 4 paces (that’s 8 paces for those that are mathematically challenged…) then getting into the parallel bars and using his great upper body strength was able to hold himself in the standing position. Although there was very little weight actually on his feet and legs, I cannot explain how amazing it was to see him in the upright position!

Fliss Arrived at about lunch time and at 1300 we headed out to Caffiena with Monique and Laura for Cory’s very first trip out of the hospital since we arrived here. It all looked a little too much for Cory and we didn’t spend much time there but it was great to have a coffee and some snacks in a setting other than the Kite Café in the hospital that’s for sure!
When we got back Cory and Fliss got a pack of cards from Live Wire and played Go Fish until about 2200hrs that night!
What a bloody ripper of a day!

Australia Day was off to a not so fun start with Cory waking up in lots of pain and needing some additional Oxycodone, had a shower and got back into bed to get some more rest before Fliss and Keeley rocked up to spend some time with Cory playing Boganology and mucking about in LiveWire.

About 1500hrs Cory moved back into his “Room With A View” so good to have his semi private room back.

On Saturday Cory woke up feeling pretty good feeling the urge to go to the toilet without having the MicroLax although he was not able to completely evacuate and needed to go again only a few short hours later, it is great progress to be able to get this sensation and be able to pass a bowel movement without medicinal stimuli.
Saturday arvo LiveWire hosted a sausage sizzle and Cory got to speak to some dude (Cody) from “Australian Ninja Warrior” before Cory spent some time hanging out in LiveWire with Joshi Tickell and Fliss and finishing the day with 20 mins on the MotoMed.

Sunday was an earlier start for Cory waking up at 0745 but needing the MicroLax to get his bowels moving, good news was only needing to have one catheter overnight, so there is always some positivity happening.
Pretty quiet day with Dad and Jeldi returning from Bunbury.
Sunday night however was an absolute shit show with another poor kid joining our room that needed some emergency surgery.
We were alerted that we could not have the bed for me to sleep the night in at about 2300hrs and not getting a recliner until around midnight, then our room mate arriving at around 0130 and the ensuing settling in lasting for about 45 mins then off to surgery at around 0245hrs. Not the poor kids fault, but lots of noise and lights etc made for a really bad nights sleep for Cory.

We woke him up at 0815 as he needed to be at physio by 0900 and he was extremely tired with aching/ restless legs, had his normal MicroLax morning routine before we headed off for our first session back with Nicola returning from a couple of weeks off. Nicola was pretty amazed at Cory’s progress in her absence and Cory did not disappoint showing her that he could transfer directly from the ground to the Plinth unaided using nothing other than his brut upper body strength to literally drag himself up and plonk himself atop of the plinth and skull drag himself across it before rolling over and up into a seated position!

Lunch time came and so did the Barry’s and the Guerin’s with Chad rocking up with another McChicken Big Mac, this time with McChicken Sauce…

Had a great session at OT with Laura in the OT Gym taking the Guerins and the Barry’s with us and playing some fun Dodgeball, Frisby and a bastardised version of Cricket where we used an exercise ball as the bat haha.

We then spent a good while up at the MegaZone and the kids enjoyed a bit of LiveWire time before Chad and Cory got some “Tattoos’ painted on.
Then Cory had his weekly ASIA test again. More progress being made, but still lacking a lot of feeling especially around the T12 area and below.

Tuesday the 30th was Cory’s first day in Hydrotherapy and despite the pool being a balmy 34 degrees, Cory was still “cold”…. Anyway, he managed to do a lot in the Pool with some nice standing, walking and even some squats before doing some upper body work with float weights.

Wednesday the 31st was another crazy progress day, Nicola had him standing full weight bearing in the parallel bars for 11 seconds unaided! Needless to say we were pretty excited about this, although Cory was not and he reckons that he has stood up by himself before his accident… We then did more rebound work with Cory throwing and catching bean bags from a rebound net designed to help improve his core and trunk strength.

Intensive Rehab started the same afternoon, so after a good rest we headed down where Cory was lifted onto a Treadmill with the “Lite Gait” and did a few steps on the Treadmill with the therapists guiding and moving his legs in the right motions before taking him off the Treadmill and getting into the Tram where he actually walked partially weight bearing for about 40 metres!
I HAVE NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE THIS!

Come back from I-Rehab and met with the Dietician as Cory’s work load and his current meals are conflicting even know he is on the “High Protein” diet, so his meals have been upped in size and we also now have a much better understanding of some of the “Boosters” that are being provided in his meals.

Today, the 01st Feb (can’t believe month one of 2018 is behind us already) was a reasonably quiet one although Cory did have his first day back at “School” and NO I did not get a “First Day Back” pic… sorry…
Headed down to the physion Gym with Christina where Cory smashed his 11 second unaided standing record out to 20 seconds even in the parallel bars!
We then headed out to the park across the road with Brad Scott who was heading up to catch a flight to Kenya to help out some future budding Paralympian. What a bloody legend, it is always so great chatting with Brad!

Do you have any idea what a wheel chair costs? Leave your estimate in the blog comments below. NO CHEATING!