18th of October

9.01am Thursday morning. Jaana woke up when I arrived around 7.45 during my morning jog. She was in a good mood and had slept all night. She will be going down for physio as usual. Yesterday she was very strong, so let's hope it is as good today.

6.50pm Thursday evening. A bit late report today, but it is a good one instead! They checked Jaanas swallowing today by sticking a Video camera (nice right!) down her nose while she had to swallow. With this they could check if it was safe for her to eat proper food or if there was a risk for the food going down the air pipe instead. The conclusion was that it is indeed safe for her to eat, but when she was swallowing thickened water, it showed that a small fragment was in the air pipe. This did not worry the speech therapist (the commander in chief when it comes to swallowing) too much since it did not pass the point from where we make the voice for speaking. Instead the conclusion was made that the food goes down the right pipe, however though her swallowing muscles are weak and a bit delayed, so we need to remind her to swallow forcefully in the beginning. These muscles (as many others) needs to be retrained so I am not too worried. I made sure we have some of her favorite yogurt here so when she wakes up she can eat them. It is amazing what you learn of our bodies when these things happen! Strange we are even alive in the first place, with hole in our hearts healing when we take our first breath etc etc. Well anyway, the rehabilitation is full on and today she sat for 357 seconds and stood (supported her own weight with a frame) for over 200 seconds. Very impressive. Using a bit of statistical imagination, extrapolating the progress from yesterday, she will do a marathon in under 39min at around Christmas time! All in all, progress is obviously a lot slower than that, and sometimes things move slow, but her (and mine) spirit is high as is our motivation! There is only way from here...