Monday, December 29, 2008

Happy Holidays!


I hope you all had a wonderful and peaceful Christmas!!!

Sorry it's been so long since an update, but it's been a little busy here. Chase is being kept busy with vision therapy 2x/week, OT 1x/week, PT 3x/week, plus he's seeing an OT at Children's that specializes in feeding issues every few weeks. Oh, add in the doctors appointments and trust me, we're busy! LOL

I guess I should back up a little so this all makes sense. Chase is still quite delayed in motor skills (he is now 16 months and gross motor is at a 6-9 month level). Most of this is due to his vision, but some is caused by spastic diplegic CP. His developmental specialist has scheduled an MRI for January 8th to see exactly how he is affected. The Dr feels they will find minor amounts of damage, but admits we could be surprised.

Because of the CP he is having some swallowing problems (NO aspirations! yay!). He has hypersensitivity when swallowing (gags easily) then once food hits his throat he has a delayed swallow (he doesn't know to clear his throat when there is still food there). He had a swallow study a few weeks ago and will have a scintiscan scheduled soon (to check reflux). Basically it means right now he's only eating (drinking) whole milk and high calorie Pediasure. BUT he's too skinny, the little peanut. He just hit the 20 pound mark after being 19 pounds for months on end.

He isn't crawling yet, but drags himself around now, LOL, on his belly, with his arms. His PT got him a special walker and hopefully he'll be up and running around soon. He will be in a horse riding program as well as swim therapy in the Spring to help his core strength...

One thing I have to add is that he is right where he should be with speech development. This tells everyone that cognitively he should be just fine, brilliant in fact!

He is STILL the happiest baby ever, loves to tell jokes (that only he understands of course) and LOVES to make all of us laugh.

We will update for sure after the MRI...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Chase's new "Smarty Pants" image


Ok, it's been a few days since the BIG appointment, LOL, here's the update...The feeling is still that his field of vision does not extend beyond 3 feet and we don't know if he has total central OR peripheral vision at this point. The good news is this...he's using BOTH eyes...and he is very nearsighted in the right and somewhat nearsighted in the left...so our little man now has GLASSES! He may not see a lot, but what he can see is clearer than it was a week ago.

He loves his glasses. He has never taken them off yet. Hopefully we'll begin to see some leaps and bounds in gross motor skills with this new development. He is getting PT 3x a week, vision 2x a week, about to start OT 2x weekly, and is starting with a special ed. teacher here at home to prepare him for the visually impaired preschool.

I guess that's it for now, we'll keep you all updated!!!

Happy Halloween everyone!!!!!

Monday, October 13, 2008

BIG appointment tomorrow!

Just a little vent to say I won't be sleeping tonight! Chase goes to see his pediatric ophthalmologist tomorrow morning at 9am. I can't stand the wait. We haven't seen him for 6 months and I'm hoping he sees some improvement tomorrow. I just wanted to let everyone know, in case someone reads this tonight you can be anxious with me! LOL I'll update in the morning!!!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

General Update

Happy Autumn everyone! This is my favorite time of year (I get to start planning the annual Halloween party!).

Little Alex turned 11 two days ago, I can't believe it, an 11 year old and a 1 year old, LOL. Yesterday our little angel would have been 2. We took 2 balloons and a weighted fluffy ducky to the memory garden and left them on his brick. It looks so sweet! We brought home 4 more balloons (one for each of us) and attached a card with messages from each of us, took them into the backyard and released them. It was a very nice "Trey day". Hard, but nice.

Alex is homeschooling this year and LOVING it! We are using an online program, Virtual Learning Academy, plus a ton of our own workbooks etc. It's perfect for him and he's doing very well with it.

Chase is still getting LOTS of visitors...Vision Therapy, Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and he is about to start working with a Special Instruction Teacher to get him prepped for preschool.

I guess that's all I've got for now, nice and basic, nothing too exciting going on!

Take care everyone!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

It's almost the BIG DAY!


I can't believe "micro man" is almost a year old! He seems too little to be so old, LOL. Chase has kept us busy this summer. For now we have his vision teacher, Melissa, coming to the house twice a week, Kelly, his physical therapist also comes twice a week, and we are now adding occupational therapy (for fine motor skills) twice a week as well as a special ed. teacher (I don't know how often yet) to help him get ready for preschool. I think I'll remove our front doors and add one of those rotating doors!

He's doing very well in his therapies. He is starting to eat braille books (this will eventually lead to reading them...we hope). He is sitting alone for up to 3 minutes, and is on the verge of crawling. He babbles nonstop, laughs all day long, and is one happy little guy.

Alex is getting ready to start Homeschooling. I can't wait. We're going to use an online program for most of his courses and bought the other coursework last weekend that he'll need. Our official school uniform is either pajamas or big sweatshirts =-).

Well, I just wanted to give a little end of summer update. Hope everyone is doing great, I'll post birthday pics next week!

Sunday, June 29, 2008

It's finally summer!

Hi Everyone,

Chase is having a great summer so far. We got away two weeks ago with Traci's family to Southampton, Ontario on Lake Huron for a long weekend. It was nice to escape for a few days!

Our schedule is filling up with home visits with therapists. He now has Physical Therapy twice a week, his vision teacher comes twice a week, he starts Speech this week to help with solid food feedings, next month he starts Occupational Therapy as well as Orientation and Mobility with someone from the Preschool for the Visually Impaired. I get the feeling they'll tell me to move my furniture around, LOL. They will also start getting him "pretrained" for a cane.

We are being added to a waiting list to adopt a retired guide dog...(Dave hasn't actually agreed yet, but...he will)...this will get Chase used to being around a very well trained dog. Service dogs only work up to the age of 10 and then retire. So he could start with a pet and eventually have a working guide dog.

Alex finished up Elementary School last week. He received an Academic Achievement Award so we got to go to an assembly last Wednesday. He was SO PROUD! (And handsome I might add.)

I hope everyone is enjoying a fun filled, relaxing summer!

Take Care! XOXO