Friday through Sunday, October 19th through November 4th

Hello again,

We are all now back into the standard routine of providing Tori's daily care and facilitating all of our other family needs. Brendan and Whitney remain heavily involved in their school activities and Whitney continues to follow her passion for dance by practicing up to 5 hours per day. In fact, Maria, Whitney and Brendan spent this past weekend in Ogden at a NYCDA competition. They stayed overnight at my brother TJ's house who lives a short distance away. The kids were able to spend some quality time with their cousins which was nice to see once again.

Tori, Tinker's the Yorkie and I spent that weekend at home where we cleaned the house and tried to relax as much as possible. Tori has remained healthy and her progress on learning and physical abilities is about the same as it has been for some time. Since her botox and phenol injections several weeks ago she has exhibited much more control of her hands and arms. We typically see this right after the injections and it eventually fades as the botox wears off. But we are taking advantage of this control and range now during her PT sessions where Tori has improved. Cari still provides the sessions twice per week and runs Tori through a full range of motions on almost all of her limbs and major joints. We also provide this exercise when we can but could probably do far better than we are currently... We try and get Tori into her wheelchair daily in the late afternoon or early evening time frame. Another nice result of the injections is that Tori can sit more comfortably in her wheelchair with her arms naturally positioned on the arm rests. Yogurt, ice cream and other soft foods are still her favorites and we typically feed her while she is in her wheelchair. She can still consume a whole yogurt with only minor or no coughing so her ability to eat remains stable with small amounts of soft food. She doesn't gag or choke nearly as often as she used to but we are still gauging just how much we can feed her without a vomiting episode which unfortunately could lead to an aspiration... It's a tight rope balancing act at all times it seems.

I also met with the school district and educators last week and we now have a program in place for Tori to receive some home schooling. We have scheduled one hour starting visits on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of each week. If Tori participates and can tolerate more time we will increase it. Jacob will be her primary teacher and other student assistants may be cycled in as needed. Meredyth was also at the meeting and she helped dictate what educational services should be provided and tried with Tori. We will be experimenting with some new equipment designed to give us that ever elusive 100% 'Yes' or 'No' answer from Tori. Meredyth will also continue to have her ST sessions with Tori on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Meredyth, a BIG THANK YOU for all you do for Tori!!! :-) So Tori now has activities scheduled for each day of the week. We will also cautiously evaluate whether to take Tori to the high school on occasion. Again, we have to weigh against the risk of her catching an illness or the like while at school.... Yet another one of those tight rope, balancing acts.

This weekend all of us went shopping in SLC and ate at the new Cheesecake Factory that just opened. Tori did remarkably well and lately she has gone complete days without receiving xanax and zanaflex doses for agitation. It is a great trend of course and we hope it continues.

In closing tonight, I have been trying to monitor all of the new account requests on this site. It used to be much easier but now there are so many fake requests by spammers who want to gain access to this site for unscrupulous desires… I get up to 25 new account requests per day. At this point I do not have the time to investigate then approve those which are legitimate. So if you request an account please ONLY USE your real first and last name and then reply to the automatic email which will be sent to your email address with a note introducing yourself and your reasons for wanting to contribute to the Pray 4 Tori site. I’m sorry but my hand is forced and this will be the only way I will approve any more accounts.

Thank you for the continued love, prayers and support for Tori,

The Schmanski Family