Hannah update

Sadly, my camera remains with my mom. Happily, news doesn't need a camera.
Getting up early was a bear, but H did great. No complaints as I wisked her out of bed into a dark, damp morning. We ended up waiting for over an hour to be seen, but met some nice people while we waited. The staff was really friendly, and I liked Dr. Davey. Of course, seeing a patient who hasn't had their feet corrected until this age is unusual, and he did think they were pretty bad. The rest of her is fine, he didn't seem to think her wrists are very bad, but he did prescribe the wrist splints to help her keep them not so twisted.

We talked about the Ponseti method, which he thought worked well- for babies. Normally, if the feet have been neglected this long, this method won't have the follow up care necessary to maintain the correction. He didn't think that was the case with us. He said no one in our area does castings, and since he's in the OKC area only visiting here once a month, he doesn't have the capability here, either. Of course, I'm of the mindset of doing the least invasive and, in my mind, better in the long run procedure. I'm thinking if we can get her feet moved enough, the final surgery will be minimal, with less scarring and less for her feet to recover from. I want to be open to the possibilities and what will be best for H, so I asked him if he'd rather do the traditional surgery instead of casting. After a pause, he said if it was his daughter, he'd want to try the casting, too. That made me feel better, because that's what I really wanted to do. I've been so encouraged watching another little girl in Florida going through the process, with huge improvement. It gives me great hope for H.

When I got home, I made the call and set up 8 trips to OKC for castings, starting mid January. We could start in December, but we'll miss time for holidays, plus we have a developmental specialist to see, her teeth to take care of, and some therapy to fit in somewhere. He doesn't think it needs to be done right now, since it's gone on so long already. I'm going to have to figure out how to do school on that day, since it's going to be at least 5-6 hours away from home each trip.

When I went to the OT eval, the OT was thinking she probably has some issues with auditory processing and visual processing simply because of her sitting and not being very stimulated for her first years. When I go back, she will get a "sensory diet" for each day that should help her out. I can tell sometimes when she's not able to take any more when I'm explaining something to her, or when she misses out on all but the first and last words of something I'm telling her to say, and the last sounds of single words. She's still working on understanding the need to look at what she's doing to be able to do it right. (Put something where it goes, pull on her pants, etc.) It's getting better all the time. She's also getting better at letting me stretch her feet (which the Dr. wanted me to continue) without getting as upset. We work on counting and naming things, singing, and learning new sounds. Much better this week.

She's getting better at retaining information, too. It took a long time to remember any colors, or to be able to repeat the name for the 2nd item with that color, but she's getting that now. She doen't have to be told "pee pee and poo poo" every morning, either. Now when I tell her to go potty, she tells me what to do. The rest of the process needs a lot of reminders, but she'll get it. She's really fun to listen to when there's a lot of activity/excitement going on around her. She doesn't understand what we're talking about a lot of times, but she repeats words here and there to be part of it. Her noun vocabulary is growing, and she's adding some adjectives with them. Very few verbs at all, but is adding "da da da" between her nouns, which shows me she knows there should be something there.

She's still very content to sit for hours on end, doing nothing unless directed, but will go play when you tell her to. I know that's years of training, too, so we work on that.

I think that about covers everything. It is good to look back and see how far she's come in a short time and imagine what will come in the near future.