Have a good day.

When I used to leave for work before Matt was out of bed he would always mumble 'have a good day' without really waking up. He said it again this morning for the first time-and in a complete sentence! His speech seems to be improving exponentially these days.

This past week has been pretty tough - Matt noticed some changes in his head along the line where they put the skull back and he was sure something was very wrong. We could really see the difference in the pieces above his forehead and it was pretty scary. We went back to Dartmouth for a CT and everything is fine. There are bigger gaps in between the bone pieces than I realized and spinal fluid is moving in and out and as this happens, the appearance of the skull pieces becomes more prominent. It's nothing his surgeon is concerned about - it's really only cosmetic and Matt could opt to have another surgery (not anytime soon) if he wants to have the gaps cemented someday. It sounds like some of the bone will continue to knit together and make it less noticeable, but that he will always have some gaps because of how fractured the original skull was.

Now that Matt is feeling better, he's back to business at therapy. His pool session this week was awesome - his hamstrings are getting stronger and stronger and he's able to pull his leg back pretty well against the force of water. They are going to start e-stim on his hamstrings this week, too, so we'll see how quickly they progress.

We also went to see the guy who made Matt's leg brace and he cut the brace at the ankle so that it flexes now. This allows Matt to bend his ankle like normal while the brace still supports his knee. We were hoping to get rid of his brace completely soon, but when Matt gets tired while walking without it, his knee really snaps back. The last thing he needs is to add a knee problem to the list, so he'll keep the brace for awhile yet.