Day 43 - Aug 13

The biggest challenge Jake has is getting his knees to bend. He is able to bend them 90 degrees, but isn't able to bend them past that point, after a bit of stretching. Bending to 90 degrees is very painful around the upper part of his knee joint. He feels something stretching inside his leg on either side of his knee cap. He's been trying hard to get his legs past 90 degrees, but the pain is just too much. Flexibility of his knees was the focus of physical therapy today and has been for some time. He will continue to work on regaining flexibility and in a few months he will re-learn how to walk. Then, he'll work on re-building muscle.

While the day had some painful moments (physical therapy), it was also a great day. There are many local organizations that sponsor events for wounded warriors and their families. A friend of his, residing over at Bethesda hospital, had signed up to see a Washington National's game and wanted Jake to go. To make the long part of finding out how to sign up for this event short, after a week of contacting people I finally found the organizer who literally made room for us even though the event was overbooked.

The bus was filled to the brim, including eleven wheelchair bound warriors. The wheelchair warriors wheeled themselves onto a special lift and up they'd go. All but one transferred to a bus seat and stowed their chair in the cargo space below. Transferring to a seat was a little bit difficult for Jake, but the lack of leg room was more of a challenge. He had to bend his knees pretty close to 90 degrees for most of the journey. He didn't have room to stretch them out so he pushed through the pain. He distracted himself from the pain by reading his newest book sent by his cousin Mary (Thanks Mary!!! You should of seen the smile when he opened your box!).

This is the way to see a ball game. We had three adjoining party suites on the fourth floor of the stadium. There was food, kitchens, dinning areas, big screen TVs, and something like 72 padded stadium seats between the three suites. We ate, drank, laughed, got swallowed up in the noise and energy of the place, and generally enjoyed the fun and excitement of the Nationals beating the AZ Diamondbacks. It was a great way to get out and have some fun together. Many thanks to the organizers - I gave a big hug to those I could find.

We didn't get back until after 11:00 pm. It takes Jake a while to get ready for bed. Of course, the bathroom is no longer a simple task that only takes a few minutes, neither is getting into bed. He has to wear special boots on his feet when he sleeps, elevate his heels with a pillow, and lay on his back. This allows his knees to hang in the air so they are stretched into a straight position. Boy, in the morning, the back of his knees sure are stiff and uncomfortable. When all his nighttime preparations were done, we turned off the light at just about midnight - and I wrote this post after waking up the next morning while he continued to sleep. He was completely unaware that my fingers were click clacking on the keyboard in the darkness of the room.