Saturday through Sunday, August 11th through 19th

Hello again,

I can't believe it has been 9 days since my last update?!?! My apologies again... The summer days seem to be just flying right by us all. Tori continues to remain healthy and is in good spirits the majority of the time. She still has her moments of agitation but they seem to be less frequent as before. We continue to treat her agitated states with xanax and zanaflex which typically calm her down in about 15-30 minutes afterward.

There was another nice article called Utah families encouraged by stem cell treatments in the Daily Herald newspaper that focused on Tori, Travis and Dena who all have been to China and back for SCT. Please offer your thoughts and prayers to them all as they continue their recovery journeys.

We have been making a focused effort lately to get Tori out of the house as often as we possibly can. She has been so calm and attentive while out lately and she certainly soaks in everything going around her. We took her to the new IKEA store in Draper last weekend for several hours and she did wonderfully. She saw Shrek 3 this weekend and we also went to the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City for an entire afternoon. While there we also visited a Children's Discovery Museum that kept Tori, Whitney and Brendan entertained as well. Guy set up a large set of PVC piping pieces strategically placed on a magnetic wall so a plastic ball could travel downward through all of the pieces. Tori could track that ball through the whole process with ease. I'm sure if she could she would have told Guy how to place the pieces correctly as well :-) We then ate at z'Tejas and even got rained on a little bit before we left. Tori also went to the Training Table restaurant as Guy's pictures prove. It is also always nice to hear from people who know of Tori's Story and have followed this site closely. As I passed by a table a young couple asked me if that was Tori and told me they have been following the site for a long time. So after they finished eating they stopped by our table and were introduced to Tori. We thanked them for their support and generosity and gave them some Pray4Tori bracelets as they departed. For all of those living locally please, please don't ever hesitate to introduce yourselves to Tori and our family if you happen to catch us while we are out and about. Your love, prayers and support means a great deal to us all and hearing how Tori has touched your lives is very important to us as well.

Costco was the destination today as we needed to stock up again for the next couple of weeks. Getting Tori ready to go on trips like this takes about 30 minutes of preparation if she has has her morning bath already. The van continues to work wonderfully and when we are all together we switch off attending to and pushing Tori around in her wheelchair. We just KNOW she enjoys this immensely and it's not nearly as easy in the winter when it's cold and wet... So we are making the most of it now while we can. There is something else we have noticed when Tori spends long periods of time in her wheelchair. She rarely urinates while in it which makes us wonder if she has more control of her bladder than we realize. We can be out for 5 hours, come back home and out her in bed and she is completely dry. Then she is wet minutes later. I imagine that being wet while in the wheelchair would be very uncomfortable and perhaps Tori knows that and does something about it. It is certainly a possibility.

This is the last week Tori will have her casts on!!! Only one more week left but I'm sure the little girl at Costco today who followed Tori around and was extremely attracted to those orange casts wouldn't like to see them go ;-)

Thank you all and good night!!

The Schmanski Family
Tim, Maria, Tori, Whitney and Brendan