Additional Progress

Ilan has had quite an exciting week.  He did his regular physical and occupational therapy classes during the week where he sometimes chose not to participate - he came home and showed us where it was bothering him (his cheekbone) and that is why he would not participate! However, he did very well when he did participate.  So much so that the therapist is looking to add a piece of equipment to their inventory that will assist Ilan in learning to walk again.

Ilan excelled with multiple flash cards in Math, English, and general logic type items scoring 100% in most everything.  He seems to be unsure of himself in spelling. Also, he has agreed to play backgammon and chess when time permits?! 

One of the Milken parents, Susan Kaye, who has so kindly come regularly to help Ilan with therapy since his accident, came on Saturday morning and she mentioned that she found Ilan helping her quite a bit with his "lazy" right arm.   

On Saturday late evening we took Ilan to drive his sister to a Bat Mitzvah in Westlake; we decided to stay in the vicinity till we picked her up.  We asked him if he would join us for dinner at BJ's restaurant and we were overjoyed when he responded yes.  After we were seated, he had a very interested and excited look on his face - he looked around a lot, "conversed" with us a lot, and checked out the TV screens.  This lasted for about 20 mins and then he got a bit restless. As soon as we left the restaurant he perked up again.

On Sunday Jarone was home and exercised him a lot.  We stood him up and tried shifting his legs alternately to duplicate walking.  It did not go very well as Ilan favored only his left leg since his right leg is still quite stiff and immobile.  The good news is that while Ilan was standing we asked him to give us the victory sign and he did.  We got a great picture of this and will try to post same in the near future.

This afternoon (Monday 2/23) Estelle said that she worked with Ilan in the transfer of tennis balls from one basket to another.    She asked him to use his "lazy" right hand to do this exercise and was happily surprised to see that he did this exercise four times with his right hand for the 1st time since the accident!!!