20th of December

9.41am Thursday morning. Jaana has been sleeping so so the whole week long. She knows we are leaving today and is a bit melancholic about the whole thing and becomes a bit sad when she meet friends the last time in a long while. She is practicing each day with the morning having more exercises due to her increased awareness during this time of day. Yesterday, the speech therapist managed to have her exhale around 750ml without assistance, which is a lot more than before. He also supplied me with exercises for us to continue with during the Christmas break and beyond. Her major thing right now is balance and arm strength. All other areas has seen good improvements. As she will attend water therapy in Sweden, I have all hopes that she will regain the same in the near future.

As we are leaving Singapore around midnight today, this will be my last entry from here. I will come back to you as soon as possible from the south of France and let you know how her trip was. I have tried to arrange everything for a smooth journey, but you never know...

For all of you who has asked about forwarding address and telephone numbers, I refer to a much earlier post in October where details can be found. I will update these as they become available.

18th of December

10.03am Tuesday morning. Jaana did not sleep all that well and is a bit tired today. As she realize she is leaving she gets a bit sad when meeting friends for the last time in a while. As this is rather natural, I do not see any trouble with that (I get sad for the same reason). Other than that it is not much new to report but rather steady exercises and rehab.

17th of December

6.50am Monday morning. Sorry for not keeping you all up-to-date. This was due to some internet problems here at Treetops, but seem now to have been fixed. Since my last report, Jaana has been eating and drinking well. Her exercises has continued, without and major breakthrough, but instead building up for the next push forward. She has seen two doctors and our GP here in Singapore is coming on Tuesday to have a final examination of her. Yesterday her former boss here in Singapore came by to say farewell, which made her a bit sad when it woke all kinds of emotions. She settled in quickly and listened carefully to conversation. She eats quite well, and enjoys fish more than anything. The speech therapist has improved her jaw control quite a bit so she can now eat a more varied kind of food, including things which is harder to swallow. As an example I can tell you that she can now finish a meal in 45min compared with 1h30min before! That is very good news as it gives her more time to exercise and rest. To eat for 1.5h just makes you tired so this is good news. I think she also exercises a lot herself! As soon as she still having a rest just before sleeping, she is moving legs quite a bit. As I mentioned before, the arm movements are a bit weaker and we need to focus more on that over Christmas.
We are still on schedule to leave Singapore on the night between Thursday and Friday. We will fly out 1am in the morning and land around 8am in Europe. It will be a long flight, so I will try to have her (and me) to get a good nap during the day on Thursday to handle the trip. The moving company is still packing up, having to change a container today. The car is being returned to day.

14th of December

8.15pm Friday evening. Nothing to much to report from today. More exercises and such, but all well. I have picked up medicine for Jaana for the whole Christmas break so I do not run out. Everything else is fine. Parmi has been a trooper as always. Without her, our lives would look very different right now. Everyone would be a lot more stressed than they are. Most likely she will not read this, but everyone should know, she is pulling her weight and much more!

13th of December

4.31pm Thursday afternoon. One of Jaanas doctors came by today and had a look. He was pleased that she is making progress and think that she has good chances to walk with help of a cane within 2 months! This is good news, even though if there is a lot of work to be done before we get there. Today was more or less like yesterday; physical exercises, resting eating etc. Again she did not sleep all that well, and is a bit tired. She is in a good spirit and liked very much to see the doctor again. He talked a lot to her and she was quite happy to hear his comments.

12th of December

10.18am Wednesday morning. A good night sleep set her up for a good training session in the morning. We did a lot of leg exercises and standing up for some time. This afternoon we will practice more on the arms. One small 'exercise' to increase her breathing muscles has been for me to put a arm/hand on her tummy while she is sleeping. this makes it a bit harder, but is good practice. This morning Parmi and I heard a weak but yet recognizable 'ja'. This is a start with a long way to go, but still a good start. I asked her if she noticed that her efforts were making a difference, and she nodded. Hence I think her mood is in a quite condition and she has not been sad for some time now.
Yesterday for dinner, she finished of seom fried fish with good appetite.
10.31am Wednesday morning. I had to write some more! I just took her to the bathroom for the shower. She is helping so much and holding a lot of her own weight. Fantastic! It is important the person who assist her is a bit taller than her and being prepared to carry her weight, else she is very easy to care for.

11th of December

12.49pm Tuesday afternoon. As always when you go to a new place, it is a bit hard to sleep. Therefore, Jaana is a bit more sleepy this morning as she did not sleep all that good last night. However though, this morning I took her to the bathroom on my own, with her helping out quite a bit. It was good to see that we are now much moving in the right direction again. Trying to stay away from any kind of infections, there is no reason for why Jaana will not be a lot better in a couple of months.