We are going on a .........

On Wednesday we made some bears. Gluing and sticking are always fun things to do. See that bear, the white one sitting on the table.... I will tell you about him in a minute.

On Wednesday we ate a bear! Took the grown ups a while to realise that it was time to get on with the cake thing............

but I know how to do the big eyes.............................

and then the big smile as lots of folks sang real loud to me!

You see when you turn four it is important to do something impressive. Craft and cake is good but there was something even better.

You see, on Wednesday, we went on a bear hunt!!

Can you spot the clue for our bear? Bradley is his name!

I set off in the lead to track down this bear, crunching through the icy puddles, enjoying the sunshine, me and some pals!

I soon realised that a more realistic pace was going to be necessary and enjoyed a good blether.

A quick rendition of head, shoulder, knees and toes and off to find more clues. Where is Bradley?

Aha! We found him. Sun bathing in a box. Can you believe it? He had his sun glasses on as well as his scarf, a truly Scottish bear. And he had a little friend with him, a white bear and he came back with me and helped me with the craft, (do you remember him in the picture above?) and then he came home to live in my house, with me.

What a great way to celebrate being four!

Maybe soon the grown ups will get around to telling you what I have been up to. I am still busy with appointments! In fact we are all still busy with lots of stuff.

A time to rest

Our lives are very busy just now as we imagine yours probably are too. The two older boys are going to be busy this weekend taking part in the Bethlehem Experience, in Perth. Hannah was just great in the school concert singing and playing in the woodwind band. She has a birthday coming up this weekend. Parties, nativities, singing round the tree at St Madoes makes for lots of wonderful stuff. School finishes on Friday and that will give us a little chance to breathe somewhat slower.

Our littlest needs time to rest too. After months of high level engagement in therapy with hardly a complaint he has downed tools, quite simply having had enough. And there is not one of us that does not understand that! Initially we thought he could be cajoled round, it is hard not to have that timescale of the "first year brings the biggest improvement" in your mind. The fact is our wee one is tired and everyone is in agreement that he needs a little time. He has been running three OT/Physio sessions, two speech and language and three nursery slots in a week. It is not hard to understand why he has had enough. One session each this week of physio/OT and speech and language and then the holidays. We will reassess after that.

He continues to make progress. He is holding his arm and hand in a better position which is encouraging. His language is showing lots of progress too. We pray that this will continue as we just go about our normal day to day Christmas living.

Thank you for your continuing support and prayers. Over the next couple of weeks we are going to make changes to how we update this blog so here is hoping it can be a bit more often.

Finlay continues to make good progress. We are so encouraged by this. He has an ever increasing amount of words which he does put together very slowly into stilted sentences. He has loads of fun at nursery and has adjusted well to the physio session just before nursery in a Thursday, getting a lot out of it.

There are moments though when we watch him struggling to balance or express himself or manipulate something with his hands and there are big lumps in our throats. He had his swine flu injection last week a further reminder that he requires additional care. We can't help but remember before and the things our little boy could do so easily back those few months ago.

His sense of humour and determination often help us as we battle through those moments. We are so grateful to see how after watching Peter Pan with Jed, they both got up to great high jinks playing pirates. He is so full of life and we do not take that for granted.

We are in such a blessed position too, surrounded by many that care for us. Looking at our diaries this week we had realised yet again that both parents were busy with work late Tuesday afternoon and all the kids were due to be here there and every where for clubs and appointments. Grandparents to the rescue and they made dinner for us all.

Finlay has an appointment with the orthopedic consultant and physio team on Thursday. This appointment will look again at all the options to keep him progressing, botox, stookies, splints will all be on the agenda. Next week he gets his new splints and Mum had better get finding the Fireman Sam stickers.

This weekend it was Murray's turn to go off to SU camp. We were able to take Hannah shopping for a jacket in peace as Finlay helpfully fell asleep in the car, transferred to the buggy and did not wake up until after the choice was made. Fraser and a pal headed off on the bus to Perth by themselves to go to the cinema. Our kids must be growing up!!

Last weekend did not leave anytime for blogging in the Lockhart household. Bruce was running an SU weekend away so he was away early getting all that set up. Fraser was at a scout cycle and hike camp, complete with a new helmet that needed to be bought at the last minute. In the middle of all that Hannah had to be taken to the SU camp she was going to, which her dad was leading. Sunday we enjoyed catching up with Grandma and Grandad.

Tuesday this week with both Kirsty and Bruce working and the kids needing to be here, there and everywhere, we were grateful to Tricia who calmly volunteered to take the helm of the Lockhart ship and got everyone to the right place on time and back again.

Finlay took the physio to meet his childminder this week, which was good, so she could get up to speed with some of the things he could be doing. The physio had also commented this week on how pleased they are with the positioning of his right hand. He is holding it quite open at times and it is showing reaction to what the rest of his body is doing. We continue to pray for progress with this.

He has been measured for a new splint his week. Mum unfortunately mentioned to him that Jack, a wee pal with two splints, had fire engines and trucks on his. It would appear that different health authorities have different patterns and Finlay is not at all impressed that his will not have trucks!! He has been promised that maybe next time. He is the proud owner of a new pair of boots though which he is much more impressed about as wee boys need boots to be able to do what wee boys like to do very much, jump in puddles. They were given a most successful first outing to the fireworks.

The charity Riding for the Disabled has been mentioned to us. They have a big centre in Dundee and this is something we will definitely explore. Bumping up and down on a horse would appear to be good for his over all muscle tone.

His speech is continuing to improve. We are coming to realise that some of his phrases are learned phrases and as such are just the same as single words in the way he recalls and produces them. For example "Stay there. Be back in a minute." is a regular Lockhart phrase and he is able to use that. This is a good thing. More encouraging is when he is able to put words together to express something that he is thinking that he cannot use a routine expression for. At these times you can see the thinking that is having to happen and it can be slower for him to find and produce the correct words. He is working hard at these. After nursery... "playing-in-house-Jed" and at the fireworks "Hannah-got-Daddy-hat."

We have been looking into reports which have researched recovery after a major stroke like Finlay has had. They talk about intra-hemisphere recovery where the brain finds paths in the same side of the brain to bring recovery or inter-hemisphere where the brain transfers functions to the other side. Interesting things to consider.

New routines in the Lockhart household - again!

Our holidays are well and truly over. We have been back to school and work and all our routines for a week now. Kirsty started back this week too and was blessed with a wonderful bunch of "Welcome back" flowers from all the staff and kids at Inchture.

Finlay's routines have changed a bit this week. He had a physio session in nursery this week half an hour before nursery started. He could not quite work out why Mum was leaving him with the physio rather than the bricks and water tray but like everything else he was quick to take it in his stride. He also enjoyed being back with his childminder and his wee pal there while mum was at work. He continues to work hard with the OT and Speech and Language.

His speech is showing real progress with lots more words and the occasional group of words put together. He was heard to say to a sibling this week "Stop it idiot.". While we rejoice at this spontaneous expressive language put together beautifully we can assure you we did not congratulate him. He was proudly wearing a sticker after nursery this week and could tell us that he got it for "tidy up time". This we could congratulate!! These short phrases are a real encouragement for us. He has not seen one of his Speech and Language Therapists for four weeks and we are looking forward to hearing what she has to say about his progress.

Our holiday was great. Lots of swimming and cycling as we all took our bikes. Finlay gets to ride on the back of Dads. The older boys got to ride quad bikes and Finlay was in a quad pod. (Photo's to follow soon!) Hannah had her nails done and Kirsty had a massage and a facial. Fun all round!!

Apologies for the delay in updating this blog. We so appreciate all the care and prayers for Finlay and the family. We will be trying to update weekly.

There is good progress

Our holidays have started! The kids got to go to school in jeans today which was a big hit, of course. We met with some friends for dinner tonight. The kids played while the adults yacked and occasionally they got our attention by being loud. Finlay likes being loud and is full of mischief and he was in good company for that. At the start of the week we pack our bags and are heading off for four nights. We plan to have a great time, and do lots of fun stuff - swimming, walking, sleeping, eating, and resting.

It is interesting meeting with folks who have not seen Finlay for a while. They commented tonight on the big improvement in his walking and how he is much steadier. They could see progress too in his balance and in his speech. He has a good vocabulary of single words.

This week we had the meeting round the child, a very full meeting with a lot of people. It was so helpful to hear all the professionals sharing information about our wee boy and working out how to co-ordinate the support to ease the burden on us but keep up the intensity. With some jiggling round of appointments and tacking physio and OT on to the beginning of nursery on a Thursday and Friday we will have one day completely free.

We followed that meeting by a trip to Perth to have the cast removed and an OT session. At night we headed back to Perth to Perth High for a transition meeting for Fraser. Busy times! And actually, when we think about it, before the meeting we went to pick up a tractor from Balbeggie. Yep a tractor!! It is for Finlay but we have to confess that we have all had a shot!

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Learning more

We met again with the consultant neurologist this week. It was helpful for us to ask some of the questions that we were unable to ask last time, so caught up in the emotion of what we had been hearing.

We learned that while a scan clearly shows the part of the brain affected it does not show what level of damage. It might be bruising which will have a much better recovery than cells which are dead. So a significant stroke may not result in long lasting damage and the opposite would seem to be true with a smaller stroke having devastating impact.

The important thing for our consultant was the level of recovery in the first three months. This is the acute recovery phase and the phase they want to see huge progress. While Finlay has made progress they are disappointed that it has not been more. This is what has led them to be more certain that there will be lasting damage. However, the next nine months are also really important because there can be good recovery in the first year. This is what we are working hard for.

In eight to twelve months he will have full neurological and IQ testing. This will determine his level of understanding and will help determine the best strategies to teach him all the different things he will be learning in life.

We were grateful for the time our consultant gave us.

Finlay is making progress and it is good to see. He is now allowing us to hold his right hand and we are looking to see this moving into us being able to do more of the exercise work. He does have more words in his vocabulary. He is only able to use them as single words, no sign of sentences. Sometimes he knows words but he just cannot produce them spontaneously. He needs some help to access them them from his filing system.

This week we have a TAC meeting - Team Around the Child. It brings all the professionals together around a table to discuss how best to meet Finlay's needs in a co-ordinated way.

And the rest of the family? Five more sleeps until the October holidays. We have booked four nights away, just us. How good will that be!!