Home for a Week

It seems quiet here in Halifax since Mom has left.  Nick and I are slowly getting back to normal, getting the guest room set back up after it being mom's room since August.  We'll be ready to host company again soon... well not too soon, we're enjoying the quiet time ;)

Mom had a good trip back to Alberta but it was definitely winter travel.  Her plane was delayed from leaving Halifax by an hour due to the snow (the only snow we've had yet this year) and then she arrived back in Edmonton to -26'C.  Rory was at the airport to pick her up and drive with her back to Peace River.  Before heading home of course she had do some visiting.  Rory and her met up with her nephew Seumas and her sister-in-law Brenda in Edmonton.  Mom decided to show off at the restaurant by walking in and not using her scooter! 

Rory and her drove back to Peace River that afternoon.  Rory sent me some pictures to show how happy mom was to be done travelling, as she's generally been on the road since early August due to my wedding.

Mom back in her own room with her own bed, all that is missing is her cat :)

One of the first things Mom did when she got home was dump out her suitcase and had Rory put it back in the basement.  No more travelling for a while!

Duncan was home for a few days unexpectedly when Mom arrived home which was really great.  Rory had to head back to Edmonton on the 5 AM bus in order to make it to his afternoon class.  In order to celebrate her return home Duncan brought Mom out for lunch in Peace River.  Again she decided to show off by walking into the restaurant.  She said it wasn't a glamorous walk but she did get in without the scooter!  (That was on Wednesday for those of you who've lost track of days, like I have.)

Since then mom has had lots of visitors to the house in Peace River, all eager to see how she is doing which has been really great.  Everybody is noticing how much better she looks.  She has been learning some new exercises from Rory (who is a personal trainer) to improve her strength and mobility.  She wants to have a selection of exercises to do throughout the day so that she can constantly work on improving.  She is also looking forward to hopefully doing some physiotherapy soon.  There was also a W5 documentary that she was watching this week that talks about retraining your brain to do things that it hasn't done in a long time.

What she has noticed most in the last few days is how tired she is.  Now this of course sounds "not good" but then she realized that she is tired, not exhausted, like she used to be before treatment.  Considering the trip she's just gone on anybody would be tired and would need a few days to crash once they got home.  I know that I crashed this week and really enjoyed sleeping in this weekend.  It would only make sense that she feels the same way. 

Little things are still improving.  She said that she's been noticing herself unconsciously doing things that she wasn't able to do before the procedure.  When a friend was over visiting, mom found that she was rocking herself in the glider using her right leg!  This is something that would have been impossible a month ago.  She also walked across the kitchen several times without realizing she was doing it.  She was only able to do this a few times that day, but each day gets better and better.

I thought I'd finish up by posting a few interesting news stories from this week and the Liberation Treatment.  It has been one year since we all first heard about the Liberation Treatment.  The documentary that started everything in Canada aired on November 21, 2009.  Since then 14 countries, including the United States, have started offering the treatment.  They don't know how many hundreds of Canadians have travelled to have this done.  There is hope however, last week New Brunswick announced money to fund MS patients from NB to get the treatment.  In response to this CBC did a poll asking if Canadians felt their provincial governments should be funding the Liberation Treatment,   92% of Canadians said YES!!!!