Dive 38: A Major Breakthrough to report!!!

Here is Naomi putting sugar into her hot chocolate with her RIGHT (affected hand) and using suppination to do it!!

That's almost 90 degrees of suppination. To be fair, she was engaging other muscles to help as well (bad posture at shoulder), BUT she has never done this action before, nor on her own, nor with so little other muscle involvement!! WOWEE, ZOWEE!!! Independent finger movement---here we come!!!

This morning Naomi had an extra long HBOT session (2 hours) at depth. I think all of our successive HBOT treatments are having a positive affect. I wish we had been able to do more therapy. Naomi does small amounts of therapy every dive, and we do small amounts of therapy inbetween dives. For instance, we played Trouble (hard to do) with Righty twice, and she did a round of Sun Salutation exercises. However, at age 10, there are limits that she imposes as to how much she will do.

I am totally stoked. Because Andrew was nice enough to let us do an extra dive on SUnday, we will actually (weather permitting) be able to leave slightly early tomorrow, Hurray!!!

We are all eager to complete our last two dives!!!

Update on Skinny

Skinny-the-wolf-dog ran away from the HOC this morning. He broke out through and open window. My guess is that he went for the hospital to find Bob. The hospital is several miles away. I want to go look for him, but we already got majorly stuck in snow this morning, and I am afraid to get stuck again.

We miss you Skinny, please come back!

A BIG Thank you To Humphrey and Andrew at the HOC:

Humphrey, Naomi and Andrew at the HOC

Christmas Chocolate and Dive 37 is completed!

Naomi pictured with her non-dairy chocolate roses!

Many thanks to our friend Kathleen for showing us how to make chocolates!

Here are Benj and Naomi pouring chocolates into molds. As you can see from this picture, chocolate is melted on low temperature in glass jars using an electric fry pan. Then the chocolates are spooned into molds. From there the molds are dropped a bit to shake the air bubbles out, then put into the freezer until they are hard enough to pop out of the molds. We painted white chocolates on to some of the molds to give a little more color.

Here are some finished chocolates!

Dive 37 Completed!!!

Today we completed our 37th dive. With all the weather we have been having (I had to dig the car out of the snow twice today), it was touch-and-go as to whether (weather) we would make it there !

Naomi hasn't had any amazing changes, but there seem to be little changes happening. It seems like she has more rotation in suppination and slightly better use of her pincer grasp. Her limp seems less pronounced, which is good considering how cold and how little actual exercise we are getting these days because of the weather.

Several of the HBOT studies I have read indicate the need for intensive therapy for the two months following the 40 dive regimine. We will most likely do constraint therapy at home as well as electro-stimulation. I know we will get push-back from Naomi, but I want to make sure that this treatment round is effective and we will get permanent carry over.


The Skinny on Skinny

Please send healing wishes to Bob (owner of Skinny the Wolf Dog). He is currently in the hospital in a coma, and we would like to see him reunited with his dog. Skinny seems very sad.

From Naomi:

And Bob is a very nice guy and he raised a lot of monny for the HOC to
open it! I am really happy that I will be home soon.

Merry Christmas!!

Day 18: A Grief Observed...

Here is Larry, Naomi's grandfather.

Yesterday, Naomi's grandfather passed away.

We are all sad, but glad that he has gone to a better place.

In honor of Larry (Alex's Dad), I am including a paragraph that Benjamin wrote about his grandfather in a recent essay:

Honoring veterans could range from saying, “thank you” to volunteering time at a veterans hospital. One way I have honored a veteran is by asking my grandfather about his experiences in the Vietnam War. He enjoys telling me stories of the heroism and tragedy during his three tours of duty. My favorite story is of how he earned his Bronze Star. While under heavy enemy artillery fire, he could have retreated with his unit. Instead, he stood his ground and radioed in the coordinates of the enemy positions enabling the US artillery to eliminate the enemy artillery batteries.

Here is his Obituary in the Oregonian:

Laurence Charles Baxter
Friday, December 19, 2008
The Oregonian

A service will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2008, in Willamette National Cemetery for Laurence Charles Baxter, who died Dec. 17 of kidney disease at age 68.

Laurence Charles Baxter was born Oct. 20, 1940, in Torrington, Wyo., and raised in Kalispell and Columbia Falls, Mont. He served three tours of duty in the Army in the Vietnam War and received a Bronze Star for Valor. He moved in 1974 to Portland, where he worked for Multnomah County for 29 years, most recently as a project manager. In 1982, he married Sheryl Funkhouser.

Survivors include his wife; sons, Alexander V. Baxter and Charles R. Baxter; stepdaughter, Juliette C. Soihl; and two grandchildren.

So long, Larry. It was a good ride. Say hi to Frosty, dog of legend, Mae, Grandma Gail and Burrell from us all.

Gingerbread, Snow and Mom's HBOT Breakthrough

Sunday was Gingerbread House making in the common room where we are staying! Naomi had a blast decorating a homemade gingerbread house with a room full of other people. How fun!

Saturday night it started snowing and it snowed just under a foot in Victoria, then the temperature dropped down to -7 C (or about 20 F for you in the US).

Here I have managed to capture probably the worst view of the snow, but we were all too cold to go out and take another. Really there is about a foot of snow! And it's VERY, VERY icy.

Saturday night we were at Kathleen's singing concert, and left 1/2 way through because we thought it would be better driving right away in the snow rather than later. We nearly got in three wrecks as underneath the snow, the road was very icy. But we made it home. We almost hit a DEER on a very urban street (munching on shrubs in peoples front yards) as it walked across the street. We think that it might live in the Garry Oak Forest at Government House.

Garry Oaks are protected here, and once had a vast range on Vancouver Island. Several species of animals, birds and insects are dependant on the Garry Oak for habitat.

Mom's Big HBOT Breakthrough:

For the last year, I have had chronic tendontis in might right foot. No day goes by without a little pain. Some days are better than others, but I can always tell its there. Well, for the last 3 days, I have been PAIN-FREE. Thank you HBOT

Although we are here primarily for Naomi, I am happy to get a benefit from spending hours of my life watching movies in a pressurized box!

Naomi's ankle scar continues to get lighter and lighter. It may disappear all together by the time we leave. Her face eczema is still gone, although we haven't gotten any structural break-throughs just yet. Maybe some healing takes more time.

Benjamin successfully made it across the boarder via the Clipper by himself today. We missed him--it has been far too quiet without the constant bickering of siblings who love each other.


Have a great day!

Day 13: Saturday Snow

Here is a picture of Naomi looking out of the HBOT tank. She is stretching her right hand flat against the port hole as part of her tank exercises. We are watching Whale Rider! What a good movie!

Naomi might be growing as her right leg seems to have stiffened up a bit these last two days (or its just because its SO DARN COLD!!) It's 2 degrees C (or about 38 F for you all in the US)here today. We had a light bit of snowfall around 4:00 PM.

We have an adopted dog during our stay...Ruby. Her owner asked us to walk her everyday (if we had time), and we have watched her at nights as well. She is a very good dog, but very timid. We enjoy having a canine friend to walk with since we miss Suki so much.

Here is a picture of Naomi and Ruby during our daily constitutional:



Thursday Alex and Benj took the Victoria Clipper home. What a great experience! If you don't need a car in Victoria, I highly recommend the Clipper as it is not that expensive and VERY fast. It took 2-1/2 hours to get from here to downtown Seattle. If you take your car up to a ferry it can take about 5 hours to get here.

Here are Benj and Alex before the Clipper left in the Inner Harbor.

No more major changes to report at this time. We have done 23 dives as of today and have 10 more days to go!

Oh, for people who subscribe to the blog, I updated the post from Sunday with a picture of Naomi's ankle and such, but you have to go the blog live to see the updates apparently.

For people thinking about coming to do HBOT here in Victoria, the HOC is a very relaxed and relaxing place. We appreciate the energy of the people who run it. They have a lot of ammenities for people to use, like the best water filter I have ever seen, infrared sauna's, and more. Today might have been a good day to do the sauna.

More on living in Canada:

Food here is very expensive compared to the States. And I have heard that Seattle in particular is expensive in comparison to say Texas. 1Liter of organic milk cost 3.59, which makes it approximately 12.00/gallon. Regular food prices are as much as WHole Foods organic in the States, only for regular food. An organic box of Macaroni and Cheese is $2.99/box!

Pizza Hut is apparently $28 for a large pizza!

The only things we have found that is reasonably priced are Hum Bao in the International District (.90/bao). Of course its probably laced with melamine.

Thankfully, we brought a LOT of food with us, and have a kitchen to cook in every day. That is saving us.

Gas is also very expensive here, although the price has been dropping. What is it in the States? It's .83/litre, or about 3.20/gallon.

Have a great day everyone and stay WARM!!!