Through the Journey We Go!

 Dear friends and family of Seraya!

Thanks for keeping up with the story of sweet Seraya Schutten. While it may seem that the upcoming updates will be a bit repetitive because she is on the journey we wanted to give you a small insight into this past week and looking forward. 

See an update from B&A: 

Each day this week she receives 1 hour of physio, which could include (doing stairs, stretching exercises, walking with a walker, sitting exercises, crawling on all fours and many more).  Seraya receives 1 hour of OT three times a week. They have been focusing on trying to help her to improve, on being more independent in her everyday tasks (eg. getting dressed, brushing teeth, doing zippers) and really trying to encourage her with certain activities, to use her left hand more. This will help to strengthen it, so that hopefully she will be able to use it more regularly. 

Seraya is doing well with her therapy sessions, but also seems to get quite frustrated at times as it is a lot of hard work and she’s also super determined and wants to do everything herself, even though it’s quite difficult for her. Some days she has lots of energy for her exercises and then the next day, she can be exhausted, so we just take it day by day and don’t push her too hard. We are thankful for the progress she has made so far!

She attends Bloorview school each morning of the week from 9-11:30 AM which she enjoys. She doesn’t have school in the afternoon at this time as the school is just too full at the moment. 

In her free time she’s able to do some walking in her walker, spend time in her stander or go for bike rides which she really enjoys. She whizzes up and down the hallways and greets everyone with a friendly hello or “I love you”!

At night time they do fun recreation activities for the kids here which she also enjoys. Monday would be swim night, when she’s allowed to. Tuesday is games in the gym night and pet visiting. Wednesday is kitchen/baking night and Thursday is craft night. They really try to make it fun for all the kids staying here. We are so thankful for this blessing! 

Also we are so excited as we were granted our first weekend pass for this upcoming weekend, which means we are allowed to leave with her, Friday afternoon and then bring her back Sunday night! We are immensely thankful for this and are really looking forward to all 5 of us enjoying some family time, being under one roof again!

There is much reason for thankfulness to our Heavenly Father. All Praise to Him! We ask that you continue to uphold Seraya, her parents and family in prayer as they continue this positive journey so far. Thank you on behalf of the family for all the support and encouragement so far. 

On behalf of B&A, 

Jake DeJong 

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