Mr. Paul came to see John for Physical Therapy before we left for school on Wednesday of last week. John did well and Mr. Paul is more and more convinced that he will see John walk independantly and relatively soon. John is now wanting to take steps all the time and constantly wants to 'go, go, go' which also means that he is growing increasingly frustrated with the limitations of his body, but the good side of that is that it pushes him to try and do more things and he's finding that the more things he tries and really wants to do the more that he is able.
John didn't get to go to school this week because of his hospitalizations but school last week went great, even suprised his teacher! It's sometimes hard to decide whether we should tell his therapists what cool things he is doing at home because he won't always or even often repeat it for someone else, least of all for the person that you want to see the cool trick. Well I was so thrilled with how he's been working on colors that I couldn't help but let Miss Amy know. She was excited and even though John would not consistently pick out the colors by name he was sorting colors like a champion!!! We were all so excited and it opens so many more doors for therapy and teaching. Amy did tell us that the dsypraxia therapy is NOT fun and she just didn't think John was ready to cooperate with unfun things at the moment, believe us he is certainly not, but that the rate of talking would not necessarily slow down the rate that he could learn other things like colors, shapes, numbers and our favorite and most desired goal READING!!! Albeit those things are down the road a ways, John is just turning 3 this December, at least they are on the road that we are traveling.
Thursday of last week brought Desiree, the Occupational Therapist. Another thrill packed day! Miss Desiree brought the oh so loved finger paints. John not only knew exactly what she had, he remembered the exact step-by-step routine that they played last time, even though it's been two weeks full of other therapies, books, tv and such and absolutely no finger paints. We know that if he plays with something a lot he's done with it and won't then do it for his therapists so we don't repeat verbatim lots of stuff that he does in therapy. To say the least Miss Desiree was floored that he remembered every step of the process and she never had to remind him even once of this little finger paint dance that they had been doing. She is ready to start pushing his little brain to learn, learn, learn. Actually what she told us was that he was too smart to not push him hard to learn, too smart to let his learning be dependant upon his muscular activities and smart enough to know that if we weren't pushing him to learn that we didn't expect much and to manipulate that to it's fullest. So she has big plans for him using a relatively new therapy and starting to do things like more colors, learning his letters and such! We are very excited!!!
Friday pool physical therapy was called off due to storms and lightening but John needed some extra fluids anyway and ended up spending the night in the hospital. Even there we see advancement all the time. He doesn't scream and cry over the IV's anymore, he seems to understand that if he holds still it takes less time. He's also less tolerant of the nurses, docs and staff and mostly just wants them to go away so that he can watch the tv some more. He's learned to use all the buttons on the little hospital tv and can surf the channels and turn the tv on and off, and on and off, and on and off with the best of them. He's also now strong enough that he gets to ride from the ER up to his room sitting up alone on a gurney, looking around at everything, he thoroughly enjoys this little ride and entertains the staff as he goes along because despite age, and such he's still a little bitty guy and lets not forget overwhelmingly cute!
Saturday John was doing great and we got to go home. Sunday morning he looked fantastic and by Sunday evening he was starting to go downhill again and on Monday right back to the hospital. But they think that they have figured out this time and so going home should be of much longer duration. This week will hopefully be a week of resting up and doing well during therpies and next week he gets to try going to the after-school program in the country to hang out for a couple hours on Thursday afternoons. His therapists would like to see him have some other children to just play with so we're going to give it a try and see how he does!
Well the hall door is back open and the toddler is escaping!!!
Phew! We made it home, John is doing great! Thought I would share his last modeling pic with you and let you know that we were all back safe and sound at home and silly boy is snoozing in his own bed! He has PT in the morning, another modeling job for his mommy and a pretty full day, but I think he will be up to it because the rest of the afternoon went fantastically!
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