New experiences

With a little luck, tomorrow Harri will have a new experience, sailing. A couple of times in a term his school takes students on an excursion to the bayside, and go sailing with Sailability.

Regards Matt

Harri has moved deep into the drug trial

Over the last couple of weeks, Harri has had an increase in the dose of his drug trial. For those who are only just joining in on this information. Harri started a experimental (for Australia ) drug trial, in November last year. To the best of our knowledge, Harri is the first pediatric trial case in Australia. There has been some adults involved in the trial, but it is not coordinated. Each patient is seeking advice from the Dr. overseas who has had the most experience with this trial (over 11 years). The use for this drug to treat stroke and brain injury patients, is having amazing results. Not everyone responds to the treatment, and some respond faster than others.

The dose Harri is on, is now starting to near the levels that have had great results in adults. In the last 10 days Harri has been increasing the attempts to communicate. His teachers at school have said that they are now noticing Harri using eye blinking to make choices. At home we have witnessed an increase in the eye contact he makes with us and visitors. We have also noticed an increase in the amount of sounds he makes while trying to communicate, as well as the range of sounds ( higher and lower pitch sounds). It may take several more weeks or months at this level or slightly more, before Harri starts to really benefit from the advantages of the trial. But we approach this year with a real sense of optimism.

Please share this story and link around to other who follow Harri's progress, but may not be currently a follower of the blog.

Regards Matt

A day on the green

Last weekend, Harri enjoyed the concert in the vineyard at Sirromet, "A Day On The Green". The bands were Hall & Oates, Glass Towers and Icehouse. Harri really enjoying one of my favorite eighties bands. The afternoon / evening was good.

School this week for Harri has been more productive, he is really starting to settle into his environment. School photos were on Friday, so he had to be looking his best for his first ever high school photos. Harri will spend contact time in the classroom, over the 3 days at Corinda SHS. They will be, Maths, Science and Spanish. He will also spend some time in Art. The remainder of the time he will work on his IEP at the unit.

Harri was supposed to go sailing for the first time last Thursday with the seniors at Nursery Road, but wind conditions meant the day was cancelled. He is looking forward to his next opportunity.

I will finish this week off with a photo from the concert last weekend.

Milestone for the blog

Hello to all the readers of Harri's blog. Firstly let me say thank you all so much for coming back and getting your updates on Harri's news. I hope to have some interesting new posts to put up this year, some of which will be created by Harri at school and uploaded to the blog. That is if i can get my head around the technology.

The milestone for the blog is, sometime this month we will pass 4000 visits to the blog since the beginning of last year. We also have 13 followers.

My hope and aim is to double that for the next 12 months, and to grow the number of followers to over 50. To become a follower, you will need a google email or yahoo mail account ( yahoo email accounts are free and easy to set up )

The charity Harri's HOPE Inc. will also be holding our first fundraising event this year, to complement the other fundraising efforts already in place.

Thanks again for all your support, Regards Matt