One step forward, two steps back....

It feels like one step forward and two steps back – today Libby was in pain every time her heels touched the floor! We went to therapy and she managed to do 6 minutes on the treadmill and some side stepping before it was too much for her to bear - until she could ride the bike! Lori (the therapist) thinks it could be bruising where she is not used to having her heels touching the floor (she has always been on tip-toes), so she is going to email Dr Dobbs who performed the heel & hamstring operation to double check. Also she is in desperate need of some ankle support as she is now walking in a totally different way and she is very weak at the ankles, these supports we know as splints and should have arrived by now, but just our luck, ours have gone walkabout! Lori again was brilliant and has hopefully located them at another hospital and she has offered to collect them before she goes to work tomorrow so that they are there for Libby's therapy session at 1pm – I hope she remembers! We are very keen for these to arrive as Libby hasn’t worn splints before and we would really like them fitted and tried whilst we are here in St Louis – we are also desperate to go shoe shopping for Libby, for once we are going to have a choice and it’s so exciting!!

The afternoon was lovely, we met with Karen, Matt, Yasmin & Sebastian (Yasmin is nearly 11 and having her SDR surgery on Thursday), the girls chatted away, Ben & Sebastian played in the games room with Matt supervising and Karen and I chatted with plenty to talk about, the wonderful St. Louis Children’s Hospital, our children, the NHS............ say no more!! – Uncle Karl had escaped for some ‘children free’ time and to regain his sanity!

It was time to go much to the children’s disappointment and we left with Sebastian explaining to Ben how to blow bubbles with bubblegum – Sebastian, you’ll be pleased to know that both Libby & Ben spent the next 4 hours practising and both succeeded, so Thank You!! I tried to get a picture of them both but Ben blew too hard and his gum zoomed across the room and embedded into the carpet! Thanks for a lovely afternoon and good luck Yasmin for Thursday, we will be thinking of you and will hopefully see you before we leave for England on Saturday.

Oh,and I nearly forgot, we had a video MSN with Daddy, he could hear and see us but we could only see him. You'll be pleased to know that I was still nagging when he typed the question 'what are you doing tomorrow?' and as I was waffling away my long drawn out reply, I noticed that he wasn't actually listening to me, I could see his eyes were kind of above the webcam level and he was watching the telly - MEN!!!