4 DAYS AGO! I can't believe that 4 days ago life just went on like normal. The last 4 years I would have gotten all emotional and would have been slightly depressed, but not this year, not on the 5th year. January 16, 2012 marked the 5th year since Joey's accident. Even though the day went by like any other day and I didn't realize what the day meant on that day in 2012 doesn't mean I have forgotten. It seems that I refer so much of my life to 'before the accident' or 'after the accident'. However, I am glad that life has become normal, so normal that the good anniversary dates precedes over the bad anniversary dates.
So much has changed over the last 5 years, SO much that I am not going to go through everything. I'll just talk about the last several months.
SCHOOL
Joey is in the 1st grade. He loves school. He loves all the kids, but he loves the bus ride to school the most. He is meeting all his IEP goals and is really learning a lot. He has a great teacher and great aides who really cares about him.
HOLIDAYS
We had a very busy holiday season. We do Hanukkah with 1 side of our family and Christmas with the other side. My SIL from Idaho and my 3 nephews and niece came to stay with us. Joey had a great time with all the noise in the house. However about 4 days into vacation Joey got sick. This is the first time in 2 years he got sick. It lasted about 1 1/2 weeks. Poor guy was so miserable. His body gets so tight and its hard for him to clear his throat. Of course he was better by the time school started.
DOCTORS APPT.
At the beginning of each year we do our rounds of dr. appt's. We started with the regular pediatrician appt. He grew a couple inches and has gained 5 lbs. He is a growing boy. He is in the 25 percentile for his age, which is really good for a child with CP.
Then we saw the Neurologist. The Neurologist gave him a clean bill of health and sent us on our way. We don't need to see him until next year.
The most dreaded appt.'s of all is his Orthopedic appt. This is the appt. were we check his hips for dislocation and his spine for curvature. Xrays show that all is perfect. He does have to have botox again. We need to do botox every 6-8 months in his calf's, hamstrings and abductors. Then we do serial casting on his legs for 4 weeks. So the dreaded appt. turned out to be not so bad.
THERAPY
Therapy for Joey continues. He gets private PT 1x a week and Hippo therapy 1x a week, then in school he gets 1 hr of PT and OT a week and gets about 30 minutes of vision and speech in school. He also gets CME (Cuevas Medek Exercises) therapy for an hour a week. I am also trying to get Joey to Arizona for ABM therapy every 4-6 months. At home he gets Behavioral therapy 3x a week for 3 hours. However, his behavioral therapy is more like a combination of all the therapy listed above. He is continuously progressing. He can sit by himself for about an average of 12 minutes. He is learning to reach and touch his ipad for communication and he is learning to express his wants through speech. His cognitive ability is increasingly improving. He is also walking everywhere in his gait trainer at school. He is working really hard.
Well that's about it in a nutshell.
Hoping everyone has a HEALTHY, HAPPY, and WONDERFUL 2012
