Ari had a rough day today. She has been very spastic for several weeks, so today they put a cast on her left arm. Spasticity is when your brain causes all your muscles to contract to the point of pain and injury to the muscle and tendons. So the rehab specialists stretch the limb out as far as they can get it and cast it. In four or five days they will remove it and evaluate whether it needs to be stretched more and re-casted or not. This method of casting is very painful because for so long the muscles have been contracted and now they are being stretched and cannot move. Tomorrow she will get a cast on her right arm and also splints on her legs. I posted pic's of her first cast. Shortly after her casting she started to show her discomfort, and the rest of her body really became spastic. This includes her stomach muscles, and so she vomited and her body expelled from all ends. She has been sweating profusely, and making a lot of noises. Like I said, she has had a rough day, but tomorrow will be worse when she gets her other cast and splints. The casting is a positive, don't hear me wrong. More positives for today... the doctor changed her valium schedule so that she will be more conscious during her speech therapy. Occupational and physical therapy is very important, but at this stage they are just a bandaid for the real issure, which is her brain. Her body does not have any issues right now except those which he brain cause. We feel like all her therapies are important, but speech therapy seems to really address her brain injury. She is really trying to make eye contact more and more, and with a lot of coaching and patience is starting to respond to commands, or requests I guess they are. Her second speech therapist today coached her into moving her arm up out of the spastic position and Ari actually held a rattle. She did it all on her own, and later in her room we were able to get her to move her leg and pull her head off the bed. She will also make eye contact with you for a short time if you are patient and ask her several times, along with alot of motivation. I only added 3 new pic's, as you can only take so many of someone laying in bed before they look like someone laying in bed. But please know that as painful as all this is to us, we continue to be hopeful and stand on our faith that our Holy Father is in control. We are learning things that we wish we didn't have to, and we are sure that our children are learning things that will affect their final outcome too. We are a strong family, even when we are apart, and are determined to make the best out of this. Our support from all our family and friends is so relieving to us, and even now our family is helping us to run our family, maintain our house, and take care of our children. I don't know how people do it without people like we have around us, and I don't want to. May 9 is my oldest son's birthday, he will be 12. He has been awesome and as strong as can be in all this. He has asked to wait to have his birthday party with us until Ari is home. And I know that with him being 5 hrs away from us tomorrow, we will probably be more upset than he will that we can't be there for his b-day, first time in his life. Please pray for peace and strength and love for my kids. They are our world, and Ari is just the 1/4 of our world that needs the most focus right now.