Las Vegas

Just about a year and a half ago, I wrote this post about the shooting at Pulse here in Orlando. We got to hold the honor of being the "deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history." Lucky us. The eyes of the world zoned in on us, people offered prayers, Facebook pictures showed #prayfororlando, world media descended upon downtown, and we were changed. When the national and global media pulled out, when the eyes of the world looked elsewhere, we were left to deal with the aftermath. People at the nightclub had to figure out what to do with survivor's guilt, what to do with their fear of being out in the world, what to do now. Victims stayed in hospitals for far longer than the world watched. To this day, if you drive by Pulse, you will see the fence surrounding it, messages of love and hope and peace adorning the fence, flowers left for the victims and the survivors.

On the one year anniversary, the city came together again. Tears flowed, the names of those lost were read, people visited Pulse and left gifts of remembrance. Four months later, we sit watching in horror as Las Vegas takes the title no city wants of deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Before we even know the final count of dead, the final count of the injured, the why behind the shooting, the title has already been claimed.

When does this stop? When do we reach the point where enough lives are enough? High schoolers weren't enough, first graders losing their lives wasn't enough. 49 people celebrating life at a nightclub wasn't enough. Current count in Las Vegas is 58 dead and 515 injured. I'm terrified that number will rise, but is that enough? How many lives are enough that we try to figure out how to stop this? How to fix this?

Las Vegas, from someone who has now watched this happen in two of my beloved places - Littleton and Orlando - I'm so sorry. I'm so sad that you have to become a hash tag. That you will have to figure out how to move forward. For the victims, I'm so terribly sorry that our tragedy wasn't enough to stop this madness. That your lives had to be taken too. That you are sitting in a hospital, injured and shocked and scared. I'm so sorry.

Baby Steps

Nicholas originally had a goal with his physical therapists that he would be independently walking by age 2. Obviously that hasn't happened, but he's still working very hard on getting that goal. His physical therapist at his school suggested that we get him orthotics to give him more support while we build up his leg strength to support standing and walking independently.

We ordered the orthotics (not much insurance drama this time!) and were lucky to have the same person and company who made his helmet make the orthotics. He is what is known as SMOs (Supra-Malleolar Orthoses). They encompass his whole foot and rise to just above where his shoe stops. He took to wearing them very quickly and seems to be doing well with them.

His physical therapist at school has been trying different ways for him to walk and has found that he liked walking with a gait trainer best and really took to it. She had tried using the push walkers that many babies use to support walking but found that he was too tall for most of those, and that they didn't have the strength to hold the full weight of a two year old. The gait trainer supported him and also gave him the confidence to walk on his own.

We were very lucky that the physical therapist was able to borrow a "floor model" of the gait trainer from the manufacturer before we had to involve insurance and authorizations to see if it would work. Once it was determined that he was doing very well with that, we decided to order one of our own. It took about two months total between placing the order, getting the documentation for medical necessity together, the measuring, the build, and the delivery, but Nicholas finally got his own walker last week and he is loving it. Suddenly, there are places viewable in the house that he's never noticed before. Suddenly, he can keep up with Emily and Zachary when they take off to a new game. Suddenly, he can control his own direction. He's so excited and I think with the additional assistance of the walker, he'll gain the strength and confidence he's currently lacking to walk on his own.

It's amazing to watch him get stronger and stronger - this past weekend he walked for significant periods of time through Disney! He's such an amazing little warrior!