I have not updated this page in a while as there was nothing significant to report, however today we had a positive change.

For the last several weeks Zahava has remained in mostly the same condition with our focus on swallow training to hopefully one day remove the trachy from her throat so she can breath normally through her mouth and possibly speak again too. This is still our main focus now as the speech pathologists help her improve her swallow, tongue and mouth control so her brain can learn how to complete a swallow 100%. At the moment she can swallow but some of it goes into her lungs so she needs the trachy.

The main goodnews we had today is that Zahava can now communicate with us via nodding and shaking her head to say yes or no. I first saw her nod her head a couple of days ago but I was not sure it was deliberate and could not get her to repeat it. Today on many occasions she nodded her head to say yes, shook her head for no and was very alert with eyes open. She also read some words on cards sent to her and confirmed that she could read by nodding her head.

Naturally we are elated that we now have a means to communicate to Zahava and we hope that improvements continue, although we remain patient – there is a long way to go yet.

This week Zahava’s sister Diane and brother in law Larry arrive from Canada, so we are pleased to have more family here with us.

Thanks again for your ongoing support, prayers and expressions of love for Zahava. Please keep it coming as she has a lot more work to do.

Yaro and Phil