Mariah’s Reemergence

Mariah tried her hand at an electric wheelchair this morning. Here her physical and occupational therapists make a minor adjustment to the chair before she took it out for a spin. (Click to enlarge.)

Tweaking the Power Wheelchair (McGuire VAMC, 8/7/08)

Once Mariah took over, there was no stopping her.

Can her NASCAR debut be far behind?

It made me kind of sad to watch her driving off into the sunset in her shiny new yellow convertible.

Did you notice the cameo of JT in that video? He’s her kinesiology therapist. At the end of the day, Mariah sat perfectly erect and unaided for over four minutes with him. Before banging out a few sets of sit ups.

Greeting a Therapy Dog (McGuire VAMC, 8/7/08)

After lunch, her work with the talking touchscreen computer was interrupted for a visit with Penny, a Golden Doodle therapy dog. (Click to enlarge.) Returning to the difficult work of pointing and touching small icons on the touchscreen, Mariah spelled “dog” and “Clay”. It took several minutes, and she paused to regroup more than once, but she wouldn’t give up. At the very end she was enormously frustrated by her inability to guide her hands to the “y” in “Clay”. Her entire body tensed, and we thought she might finally quit. Suddenly, she lunged forward and touched the screen with her nose, completing the word and exploding with laughter.

She is still absolutely un-freaking-believably amazing.

– Mark