Tokyo here we come?

C.'s therapist water-walks her in the pool

Our local therapy pool, housed in the building of C.'s alma mater, is quite nice and modern. 

The trouble with it is that it frequently suffers "breakdowns", as they're termed. The latest one has stumped the repair guys for over two weeks. 

But I wasn't as disappointed as you'd expect. It spurred us to take C. to my local non-therapy pool for the first time in her her new, state of the art, wetsuit.

We've already used it twice with undeniable success. She floated without support, and even kicked a tiny bit. E., her caregiver, and I believe that she may not have kicked with her usual enthusiasm because the wetsuit felt cumbersome. So, perhaps with time she'll get used to it and kick as she does in the therapy pool.

Most important, though, was that she didn't shiver, was relaxed and seemed to enjoy the water as much as she does the heated pool. She had been seizing badly prior to her second wetsuit session and wasn't yet clear of them when I took her in the water. 

But she actually calmed down totally after just a few minutes, confirming my conviction that swimming is soothing and beneficial for her in every way.

I'm now weighing whether to simply drop her sessions at the therapy pool once it's repaired. I do everything that the trained hydrotherapist does and those sessions are $44 a pop. (Our health insurance only allows us 12 sessions annually at their expense.) 

I'm doing the therapy myself with C. in our local public pool.
Check out the wetsuit.

Oh, and there's the fact that the best hydrotherapist dumped her ("C. gets ditched") so she would be with the second-best therapist. The latter likes to devote part of the 30 minute session on standing C. in the water. Since I walk with C. every day on land for 45 minutes, I figure water-walking isn't really crucial. 

Besides, C. doesn't seem to like it.