Ilan has casts on both legs

Since the last blog posted, Ilan has been a very busy person.

Firstly, for the past 2 weeks, Ilan has had casts put on both of his legs. Each week they have been replaced and "tightened" in order to attempt to increase the angle of his foot relative to his leg at the ankle - this will hopefully help him restore a natural walk pattern. It has been quite uncomfortable for Ilan but he has surmounted his aches and pains in a cheerful manner.

His therapies have proceeded very well - for Speech therapy he is now able to hold his breath without having to hold his nose; prior to this the air would immediately escape via his nose within a split second. Also he is able to take a deep breath and blow out five interupted sounds in a single breath which he also could not do before. He is working on increasing the sounds to 10 in a single breath. This is a big time improvement for his speech capability (and swimming too, that he misses very much!!).

In Occupational therapy he is now able to perform slightly higher level reason/logic function games on the computer without assistance and will work on reaching even higher levels.

In Physical therapy, he is able to contort his body into many more positions than before without feeling excruciating pains.

The pictures above are of the (fort) ruins in Caesaria (which was a thriving large township thru approx. 610 BC, for 600 years, and was the main gateway/entrance via sea to the entire land) and Ilan on the back of an electric cart during a tour of Kibbutz Gan Shmuel near Hadera.
Ilan will finally visit Jerusalem on April 28th and the following week will visit Metzada and the Dead Sea!

We wish everyone a Happy Passover and Easter from the Holy Land.