The Road to Recovery - Week 28

"Let your hopes, not your hurts shape your future."

Robert Schuller

Our sweet cherished Alysha Rose Smith is recovering from a post surgical complication that put her into cardiac arrest and into a coma for 7 days.  She emerged from the coma with severe brain damage.  This website was created to update friends and family of Alysha's progress along the road to recovery.  Please join us as we support Alysha on her journey.  (For earlier details, like the history behind this medical nightmare scroll to the bottom of the blog and click "older posts.")

NOTE: You can now expect weekly updates.  

Homecoming Party

A great time was had by all at the welcome home party for Alysha on the weekend.  Alysha's family, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, second cousins, friends and well wishers from the community came over to celebrate Alysha's homecoming.  Celebration and laughter, good food and friends provided a considerable amount of emotional and physical therapy for Alysha and her supporters.

A letter from the President and CEO of Georgian College.
This letter is being shared with the permission of Alysha and MaryLynn West-Moynes.

Alysha and Lisa visit the Ontario Works office in Midland.

  Now that she is home Alysha qualifies for some social assistance - financial aid.  Lisa and Alysha began the process of applying for the Ontario disability support program (aka disability pension.)  This is a fairly involved process with a lot of paperwork that needs to be filled out by Alysha's doctors and therapists as well as her family.  Lisa found the staff very supportive when guiding Lisa and Alysha through the application process and paperwork.  Alysha will receive a small amount of money per month that will help to cover a fraction of her living expenses.  The costs of her medications will also be covered but Lisa isn't sure if this includes the Botox injections.  Lisa will be reimbursed for travel costs related to Alysha's ongoing care and therapy including gas and parking.  Financial assistance for Alysha's family will come in the form of tax breaks.  This will not make up for Lisa's lost income (as she has had to leave her full time job to care for Alysha) but it is better than nothing. Please click on the link below to review information about the Ontario Disability Support Program at  the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services website.

Ontario Disability Support Program

Update on Legal Guardianship.

A court date has been set in February for Lisa to be given legal guardianship of Alysha.  This process was initiated months ago. Click on the link below to see earlier posts about this process that began September 12/13.

Week 8 Initiating the process for Legal guardianship

Update on Therapy.

Lisa received a phone call on Friday that Alysha's ongoing rehab treatments will start Feb12 at the Rumsey Rehab Center in Toronto. Alysha and Lisa were expecting to start this rehab sooner so they are enjoying their reprieve from the work of therapy and travelling to Toronto.  They are still on a wait list for rehab in Barrie, much closer to home.

Alysha's rehabilitation activities haven't stopped just because she is not attending therapy sessions in Toronto.  Yesterday a batch of chocolate chip banana muffins provided an opportunity to practice standing at the counter and coordinated mixing movements.  This particular therapeutic exercise had the added bonus of a fresh, warm, delicious treat to be enjoyed at it's completion.

Alysha is able to feed herself "finger foods," that can be put in a bowl such as grapes, fruit pieces, cookies and chips.  Lisa reports that Alysha usually crushes the chips accidentally on the way to her mouth.  Her fine motor skills are still in need of refining. As far as using cuttlery goes, Alysha has a difficult time holding the common small and light fork and spoon options.  At the rehab center they had larger forks and spoons that were weighted.  These were easier for Alysha to use.  Lisa will be looking into purchasing some of this special cuttlery for Alysha to be practicing with.  For the present time, Lisa continues to feed Alysha most of her meals by bringing the food to Alysha's mouth.