Back to bracing basics

Hannah must have just stretched or something and her wrist is kinking up a bit. We braced for so very long, and when, over the last year, and after the last brace had such fatigued fabric that it couldn't hold the stay in the palm of her hand anymore, we stopped bracing. Her OT said when her wrist didn't flex and drop her hand, as was not happening much last summer, she would do just as well without it so it wouldn't impair her volitional movements.  Happily, we stopped bracing. Suddenly Hannah recently noticed she couldn't hold a paper down with her affected hand while writing with lefty and she wanted to spend more time at OT.  We went in this week to get new ideas and I had thoughts of a new brace, and came home with two, one to help hold her hand down during school work and the other to provide a better grip on swings and playground equipment and the like. Now of course she doesn't want to wear either one, so we are back to that nasty place of trying to create a commitment to therapy after taking a break. This is not my favorite place, as it brings up all my issues of wanting to encourage her to build skills and strength and confidence and lay down neural pathways for the future, all conflicting with my desire not to ever communicate to her that she is anything other than wonderful, perfect, not broken, and not in need of fixing. This is something I will never feel I really have down.

However, in other Hannah news, communication skills are really on an upswing.  Han has fully embraced and adopted the family practice of making old songs new again, changing the lyrics to songs of interest and renown to fit the topic in one's mind.  Now "I just wanna see you ... I just wanna see you-oo, see you be brave" becomes "I just wanna see you, I just wanna see you-oo, see you be ... FART!"

Bracing.