In need of a new helper arm

I sent Jordan off to school with her helper arm on this morning. I don’t think that’s going to happen much longer this school year. The combination of bulky sleeves and the fact she keeps growing… Her arm is officially uncomfortable and doesn’t fit. We’ve always built a new one every 18 months or so. But this time around, I’ve had too much travel and couldn’t fit it into the schedule until this summer. I feel pretty bad about that considering she’s going to have to stop wearing it until July.

Since we’re going to have to step back from prosthetic use, I think we’re going to need to step up time working out with yoga and maybe weight training. I’ll probably check in with our physical therapist and see if that’s the right route. Either way, I don’t want Jordan to fall back into any patterns where she might lose strength.

One of the more interesting people I got to talk to during the Hanger Education Fair was Carrie Davis. She’s used prosthetics since she was a baby. She’s the ultimate upper limb prosthetic super-user. She’s a triathlete. She’s strong and healthy. And yet, she’s dealt with repetitive stress issues with her full arm. It’s hard to hear about her challenges when I know Jordan could be headed in the same direction. I want to learn from Carrie and offer Jordan additional solutions.

With that realization, Jordan and I are going to start working on “writing” with a dictation tool. The most professional version is called Dragon Dictation. All of our iPads and old iPhones also have voice recognition and we might just start with that. Either way, I am going to work with Jordan to start “writing” with her voice. I hope it will be a new tool toward helping her body stay strong. She’s typing more these days at school. I want to set up habits as early. That means we really need to get working on voice dictation as soon as possible.