Gone Fishin'

We took the boys fishing on Friday, and they had a wonderful time! They caught two each before the fish stopped biting, then Noah fell asleep in the shade of the huge oak tree that was nothing but a sapling when I was his age. It was wonderful having the boys on the land and next to the lake that I spent so much time beside when I was a girl. It was a beautiful day, and we look forward to doing the same thing some time soon!

Outside

Well, the weather has gotten nice and Noah is enjoying doing some creeping outside in his outdoor track. Eli loves the extra time outside, and I love watching Noah get dirty in the grass like any other kid.

Full Program

Well, we are home, of course, and while I am fixing dinner I am going to give you the wrap-up of what happened during our visit last week. We had a great time, and a very productive visit and came back completely exhausted but excited.


The main focus of our visit was Noah's hip problem and some nutritional deficiencies that show in his blood work (very typical for a kid with CP -- or any brain injury). He has had the nutritional problems for quite a while, but we have actually seen some marked improvement in the blood work over the last six months, which means he is beginning to absorb nutrients better -- this is a bid deal! And for the hip, the acupuncture caused an immediate release in the left adductor resulting in Noah turning his left leg out (which he never does -- usually keeps it rotated in).

So this is our full program (it will take a month or more to work up to it all):

Gravity Assisted Crawling -- 50 minutes a day
Gravity Assisted Creeping -- 30 minutes a day
Incline Floor -- 30 Inclines per day
Patterning: Unlocking Arms -- 1 min. 6 times a day, Marie-Foix -- 4 min. 6 times a day
O2CO2 Inhalations -- 25 per day
Masking -- 30 plus reflex masks
Respiratory Patterning -- 1 hour daytime and all night
Hip Protocol: Cold/Warm therapy 3 min 2x each 2-3 times a day, TENS on Adductors, Hamstrings and Medius 10 min each 3x day.
Ortolani Traction 3-5 mines 3x day
Deep Tactile Stimulation -- Glutes, Quads, Tibialis 1 min each 3x day
Biofeedback on Glutes during creeping and crawling
Yoga -- two positions for hip and breathing 2-3x day up to 45 min each
Intellectual:
Reading -- 50 pages or more a day, Spanish reading, French dictionary
Math -- 3 to 4 lessons per week with problem solving
Language Development, Auditory Stimulation (TEAS 10min 3xday), Facilitated Communication

And that doesn't Include the nutrition program. It's about 7-8hrs of program. On a good day it all gets done, and that is a great feeling!!

Day 4: Program Day One

Wow, what a day! It has been quite busy and we have a ton still to do tomorrow. We'll be lucky to be out of here by midnight. I am a bit too exhausted to go too much in detail about our day, but here's an overview. As we know, Noah has a digestional yeast problem, and we are going to be working on that problem very aggressively with supplements and some medications.

We discussed botox, but there is one thing we have yet to have tried, and even the most sceptical medical doctor at the institutes swears by it. Tomorrow morning Noah is going to have a session of acupuncture on his adductors. In a number of patients this has been shown to be as effective as botox on very rigid muscles.

The respiratory specialist tweaked our respiratory program by taking away the big resistive masks we were doing because he felt they weren't being very effective. We increased the "little" masks we have been doing, and kept the respiratory patterning and inhalations the same.

Tomorrow we still have five people to see, and it will likely be Sunday before I can give a full update as we will be traveling tomorrow night and Saturday. Please pray for a safe trip!

Day 2 and 3: Lecture Days

Tuesday and Wednesday of Institutes weeks are lecture days. Drew and I went to classes to learn about issues in physical, physiological, and intellectual areas of development that can better help us to do Noah's program. The Institutes doesn't want you to go home doing any program that you don't fully understand why you are doing it.

This week was lecture series 8 -- the last lecture series they do, and it was a great couple of days, as always. We learned about the swimming program in which young babies and severely brain injured children are taught to swim. In short, swimming is a life saving activity that grows the respiratory system and the brain. Plus, kids love it brain-injured or not.

We also learned about the various types of allergies and how they affect the body of the brain-injured child. Heavy metal, yeast, and all other sorts of physiological problems worsen allergies, and we must be very careful with cleaning products, make-up products, perfumes, and other chemicals that could give Noah problems. This is also why the diet needs to be organic if at all possible, the water needs to be filtered, and the food needs to be rotated. We know all about this already, but it was good review.

We learned then about language development and how to best do a language program to move the kids from facilitating all their needs to speaking them with their mouths. It is a lot to go into, but some very neat programs -- and a lot of fun. Lastly we talked about advanced problem solving, which is what it sounds like -- giving the child a "problem" and some choices to choose from. Noah is quite good at it, and it provides good evaluation for where Noah is intellectually.

And since taking pictures of the lecture hall seems a bit boring, I'm putting a couple of cute pictures of the boys traveling and hanging out in the clinic.

Day 1: Evaluation Day

Evaluation day at the Institutes is all about seeing what has improved since your last visit and seeing what still needs to improve for you next visit. Noah has gained some weight and gotten over an inch taller (no one is surprised there -- Noah gets taller even when he doesn't gain weight), but the big improvement over the last six months was reflux. Those of you who have followed Noah for a long time understand what a huge deal that is. Noah used to vomit regularly, and he was only able to eat very small amounts of food. He used to spit up four or five times a day or more. His reflux was severe and got in the way of doing a lot of his program. It was a huge obstacle to every physical program and kept him from growing and absorbing nutrients from his food. Not that it hasn't taken a lot of hard work and patience, but now Noah rarely ever vomits. He spits up a few times in a month, and he eats at least twice the amount he could eat a year or so ago. So when I say that reflux has improved -- it is a huge deal. It is not gone, but we've got a really good handle on it. It is a really big deal.

I think when we look at Noah's hip, and the obstacle that it presents, it helps to remember the struggles that we have been through with the reflux and know that with God all things are possible.

Noah's hip problems have caused him to be limited in his improvement in other areas over the last six months, but I know we can overcome this problem just like we did the last one (reflux). Prayer is tool number one, and we will utilize it regularly. We will meet with a specialist on Thursday to talk about what to do for the hip, and after that I can let you know what the other tool(s) will be.

Hopefully I will have pictures soon, too. Mom took lots of nice ones today but didn't bring her cord to download them. I will take pictures with my camera, too, from now on.

Institutes Trip April 2009

We made it safely to our apartment about 3PM and we are resting up for a busy day at the clinic tomorrow. Many of you may not know that we got to bring the whole family this time because we were moved to a larger apartment a few days before we left. We are really excited to have Eli and Grandaddy with us and look forward to a fun-filled albeit very busy week. I plan to post every day or so with pictures and information about what is being planned for Noah.