progress, progress, progress

So Mom is very excited to report that she no longer has to wear her AFO- (Ankle-Foot Orthosis). Often times with stroke and brain injury there is injury to nerves and muscles that are known as dorsiflexor muscles and cause drop foot. It is very typical for people who have drop foot to have to wear an AFO for the rest of their lives and those dorsiflexor muscles do not come back. However, with mom she has only had her AFO for about a month and she's already worked the muscles back so much that she can now lift her toes and it does not impede her walking. As of yesterday she no longer has to wear this very uncomfortable brace. We are very happy for her.
Also, we saw her rheumatologist today and he was very pleased as well with her progress. She is walking very well and her memory is improving daily. Here is an example of her memory: The speech therapist does a test called auditory memory scan (or something like that) where they give her three random items to remember, for example rose, hamburger, hat. Two weeks ago she could not remember after 30 seconds that her therapist even told her to remember anything, then last week she could remember for up to a minute with visual cueing (for example to picture a hamburger wearing a hat and holding a rose, then to give her clues like it's something you eat, something you wear and a type of flower). This week however she was remembering for up to two minutes with no cueing. This has been her biggest trial (well after she got well I mean) so far but she is really doing amazing. It is really neat to watch this progress daily.