#45: Hooky

Played hooky from work the other day. I had a good reason - my wife was feeling really sick and there were 1,983 things that had to be done by a parent that day. If not her, who?

Me, that's who! And it was great. One of the main things to do was take my son Henry to Shriners for an occupational therapy appointment. He goes weekly, but I haven't been able to get to one in ages. It was one of my New Year's Resolutions to attend more, so this was perfect.

What he's been working on lately is mastering driving a power wheelchair using his mind. We, and by "we" I mean his expert therapists, started out with pedals on either side of his head for forward, left, and right. Over months of trial and error we've determined that he works best with the pedals situated at shoulder level. So he leans straight back to go forward, or leans to the left or right to turn. He's able to scoot down hallways and stop when he wants to stop, or make his way into the gym room to play ball and turn some cookies, as shown below. This is not bad for a kid who can't walk and has serious cortical vision impairment!

Yes, this was quite a bit better than work.