10/24/07 Update

Amanda continues to make great strides since the events of the last posting. It is amazing how fast kids bounce back. Since returning from the hospital, she learned to get to a sitting position on her own. She has been able to sit on her own for a long time but now she can get there by herself from a reclined position. She is also doing really well at following commands like "give me five," "give me a kiss," "let go," "stand up," "ie down," "raise your arms," "grab on" , etc. She has been having laughing jags every night for 30-45 minutes or longer. She definitely is enjoying life.

I mentioned that we had some good news in the last posting that I would tell you about. Well thanks so one extremely generous donor and numerous very generous donors, we have now raised over $15,000 for the Assistance Dog fund for Paws4People! A special thanks to all of you who have donated!!! While Paws4People does not charge the family for receiving a service dog for Amanda, they do ask us to assist in fundraising to help cover the cost of training the dog. For those of you who would like to donate, the website is www.amanda.paws4people.org. We are also blessed that several generous companies have agreed to sponsor Amanda as well. I will post their names in the next posting once I finalize everything with them.

I have another favor to ask of you. Paws4people is giving a dog to a wonderful little girl in West Virginia named Grace. Grace had a stroke on her spinal cord at the age of 8 and she is now a sweet, articulate, amazing 9 year old quadriplegic. Students at University of West Virginia and Paws4people have teamed up to compete in a voting competition for college/university students via a website called GrabLife GiveLife. It is an online competition among philanthropic events. The first event to receive 20,000 votes receives a $20,000 check from Dodge for the philanthropy or charity of its choice. And the winning doesn't stop there...awards also given to 2nd through 6th place to 20,000 votes. Voting begins October 21st. The only people that can vote are college/university students that have valid emails that end in .edu (which is the typical college.university email). So, if you know any college/university students, please have them go to the website and vote today. Students are limited to one vote per day so encourage them to voted daily and to encourage their friends to vote daily as well! The link for voting for Grace is http://www.grablifegivelife.com/contest/viewcandidate/333

So back to Amanda .... We are scheduled to go to UAB for Acquire (Constraint Therapy) from November 26-December 21. We are excited about the opportunity to give Amanda more mobility and use of her affected side. Everything we hear about the program is wonderful. Amanda's friend who attended has made tremendous progress and is now independently mobile. I will post a lot while we are gone so you can track Amanda's progress. Katie is a little bummed about Mommy and Amanda being gone for a month so feel free to call her and cheer her up or send her emails while we are gone. She loves calls, mail, and email!

Thanks again for all the prayers and well wishes! Will post again soon! God Bless!
Susan