Go out and live your life... and make it count.

Yesterday Andie had another follow up appointment with the neurosurgeon who performed her surgery back in January and after everything checked out alright he said "you're a very, very lucky girl" - she made a point of mentioning that he used two verys -and " Go out and live your life... and make it count". Hard to imagine what that must be like to literally have these patients' brains in your hands and see them and talk to them days and months later.
She's already said that she wants to do something to give back to Good Shepherd Rehab Hospital. Even though the aphasia is always going to be an issue and she still stumbles in her speech and has to stop to think of words she realizes the odds that she overcame to get to this point.
Today she's off to the shore for an overnight trip with a girlfriend - guess she IS getting out there...

Dima's hockey team : guest post by Chris

Everyone has of course heard the stories of how bad kids are today. How they have no respect, no appreciation for others, no view of the world other than me me me!

At the request of Lyn for her blog (after I told her this story she wanted to post it) I want to bring a little bright into a sometimes rather dark and dreary story line.

As you may know I coach youth hockey (how well is debatable!). Both Josh’s Mite team (kids from 6-8) and Dima’s Squirt Team (ages 9-10) so I get to see a lot of the ‘leaders of tomorrow’ every week.

Last weekend Dima’s Blue Lion team was playing a rather close game. As the game went on the lead swayed back and forth. At one point the head coach of the Blue Lions and I noticed some rather ‘seedy’ play by the other team. Without getting technical with coaching jargon, the kids started to play both more physical and a more selfish style of play. As we coached our boys to be mindful of this one of the opponents kids (recall 9 and 10) skated by our bench and made some very derogatory comments. In addition as the physical play by the opponent escalated (we are NON check) a steady stream of their players began to take seats in the penalty box. At one point one of the parents manning their box gave the thumbs up to one of their players after a dangerous check of a Blue Lion into the boards. Nice huh. Ironically as the other team played their ‘new style’ the Blue Lions took control of the game. We beat them at every facet of the game. Even our ‘second’ line got in on the scoring. We played nearly the entire 3^rd period in their zone. Suffice to say the post-game speech by the Blue Lions coaches was not directed at the win, but solely at the poise and sportsmanship that the Blue Lions had during that game. They all knew the other team was playing dirty, they did NOT stoop to that level of play. We beat them on the ice, the way winners play the game. Winners regardless of the actual score!

Fast forward one week. Blue Lions are facing a new team in West Chester. It becomes apparent after 1 period that we may be the better team…by quite a bit. 4-1 I think the score was. Coaches start talking more and more about thinking pass first before shooting etc. End of 2 and the score is now something like 6-1. Blue Lions coaches pull our best players back from offense and have them play D. All D are now instructed to dump pucks into the corner rather than shoot. With 5 minutes left in the game even this is not working. The score board reads 7-1 but it is more than that. We now instruct the kids to fire all pucks into the corners when possible. All the Blue Lions players begin to play this unselfish style of play. I’ll focus on Dima here because he is my son and someone I always have an eye on (for obvious reasons), even though he plays wing and I coach the D.

Anyone that knows Dima knows he is not the best player out there. He does not get many goals, chances now and then yes, goals no. But he tries EVERY game and EVERY shift. He has improved greatly this season and THAT is all I ask for as a father and a coach. So here we are, about 3 minutes left in the game, Dima is only a few feet front of the net, puck comes to his stick not once, not twice, but 3 times. Each time rather than shoot he fires the puck into the corners. Here is a kid that scores infrequently and yet, when he has a chance for a goal, fires the puck into the corner 3 times! I, as a father and coach of the Blue Lions, could not be more proud of Dima and the Entire Blue Lion team. Winners both on and OFF the ice!

Now tell me there are no good kids in the world!!!

Chris

Assistant Coach

Berks Blue Lions

STEIN of the book?

When we sit down for dinner we take turns talking about our day - last night as Josh described library class he was talking about learning about the stein of a book - and as Dima and I tried to figure out what he was talking about Josh was getting frustrated until Dima got that he was trying to say SPINE of the book - do you think we spend too much time at Oktoberfests???

Just now they were eating breakfast and cracking up going "how can yogurt have NO FAT?" and describing how it could puff up if it got fat.

the cast is off

Josh had his follow up appointment with the orthopaedic surgeon yesterday and the cast came off. They x-rayed his foot and found that one of the bones is 50% healed and the other is 75%. The doc gave me the option of re-casting it or going with a boot and since the boot would have had to be put on within two weeks anyway I opted for the boot. He's still using the wheelchair at school and getting the hang of using a crutch around home but gradually we're going to gradually build up the amount of time we let him use the foot to avoid sore muscles. In about two weeks he can use the boot regularly and then he has another follow up appointment in three weeks.

Since the boot has velcro I'm afraid he'll try to take it off - Mr. Destructo likes to play with anything and everything! We've got some cable ties ready if he needs them to lock it in place! But for now we're trusting him with it since he wasn't used to taking it off when he had the cast, plus he's been told that only me or Papa or the school nurse can take it off and we've emphasized that if he starts goofing around with it too much he could hurt the foot again and end up back in the cast and it'll take even longer to get back to doing normal things. Chris is looking forward to getting him back to ice hockey but he's looking forward to riding his bike again.

Dima's been sick with a cold these past few days so he was home from school Monday and Tuesday and I had to take him with us to get Josh's cast off; while Josh was laughing and saying that it tickled Dima was freaking out about the little saw they used to get the cast off. So, since his cold seemed better this morning he was back to school today with a little bit of sniffling hoping to be fully recovered on Friday when his class goes to the Franklin Institute.