{Karlton Bontrager}

Karlton can walk! I saw it with my own eyes! He can walk!

Monday afternoon only two PTs worked with Karlton in therapy. They stood on each side of him, helping him maintain balance by holding onto a belt around his middle. He lifted his pelvis so his left leg could swing forward. The L-shaped brace in his shoe and tied around his leg kept his ankle flexed so that he did not trip over his foot. And then he leaned forward and supported his weight with the left leg while he stepped forward with the right.

Like the arm-raising ‘parlour trick,’ Karlton downplays this new advance as more smoke and mirrors than true miracle. He’s not actually walking, he says, he’s just lifting his pelvis. But the PTs indicate that his leg muscles are indeed doing more, and I think I can see his knee bend each time he raises his leg. In the therapy gym he must have walked at least 10 yards, rested, and walked back again with a PT on each arm.

When he walked, Karlton had difficulty placing the left foot. Sometimes it landed in front of his right foot. Other times it fell with the toes pointed too far out. The PTs guided him verbally, and he made the adjustments they suggested.

Meanwhile, email is becoming ever more important to him. Besides having only one hand for the keyboard and the mouse, Karlton has difficulty reading the email messages he receives. He doesn’t track well from the end of one line to the beginning of the next. At the moment, he has to settle for having messages read to him and writing on paper for later transcription. And write he does. Monday when I arrived at ISIS, he had already written two letters to be sent out. By the end of the day, he had written another one, and he dictated a fourth. I have difficulty reading his writing. Just as when he was in ICU, his writing is most legible at the top of the page; it becomes smaller and more crowded at the bottom. When he flips the page in the clipboard, he continues to write but sometimes at different angles. Later, when I go back over with him what he has put down, even he can’t quite figure it all out. So we do the best we can.

What a day this has been! Can we ever thank you too much or too often for your prayers and for the positive energies you send our way? We are so grateful.