My, how the past two months have been extremely busy! I've missed updating on Hannah and thought I'd just combine her 9, 10, and 11 month pictures into one post.
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| 9 months old |
So much has happened over the past three months with Hannah that it will be difficult to recap every detail, but I will try. The biggest issue we dealt with was her vision. We decided to get a 2nd opinion from another ophthalmologist in Cincinnati before jumping into surgery. She recommended patching her "good" eye 4-6 hours a day for 6 weeks in order to make her "bad" eye work. We did that and saw little to no improvement, so she scheduled us for surgery; however, in thinking about it more, we decided to go back to the Dayton ophthalmologist we had originally seen for the surgery. He's more experienced and has done many of these surgeries. However, in going back to him, he thought her vision had gotten worse since he last saw her and so he wanted us to patch her "good" eye exclusively for 2 weeks before having her surgery. We did and saw some improvement in her "bad" eye, so surgery was scheduled for Jan. 2nd; however, the night before she came down with a fever (that lasted less than 18hrs) and so surgery was cancelled. It was then rescheduled for this past Thursday, Jan. 16th. Surgery went well, but we won't know how successful it was for a few weeks when we go back to see the doctor. She has handled the surgery so well, and jumped back to her normal self the following day. The inside areas of both eyes are red and will probably stay red for a few weeks. At this point, her eyes are probably still adjusting to the change, but it's difficult because her "good" eye is now looking like it's crossing toward the outside, which makes me nervous that she'll need more surgeries in the future. So I'm trying to be patient and not play "doctor." I'm definitely anxious for the follow-up appointment on Friday, Jan. 31st.
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| 10 months old |
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| 10 months old |
Just before Hannah turned 10 months old, we met up with a neurologist from Cincinnati for a 2nd opinion on her MRI. We've been unsettled what the first neurologist told us and just feel there are inconsistencies with what he said and what we're seeing in Hannah. This neurologist classified her as having moderate CP on the scale of mild-moderate-severe. Even though that's a worse scenario than we were originally told, it makes much more sense to us, and amazingly enough to our therapists when we told them what he said. They all agreed that she seems more "moderate" to them as well. He also explained that there is damage in her right frontal lobe, which is the executive functioning area, meaning personality, inhibitions, and higher level thinking. We won't know specifically how those areas will be affected, just that they will. He also said that there is damage all around her brain and with her brain being smaller, that all areas will be affected to some degree - visual, speech, and "artsy" areas. So we will just have to wait and see how that affects her.
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| 11 months old |
Hannah was having some problems with eating, reflux, and gagging, so our doctor ordered a swallow study and upper GI test. We had both of those done and no problems were found - yay!! And in fact, we've noticed some improvement in her reflux, although she does still spit up some. Her home therapist recommended we put her on some probiotics (and prebiotics) to help with the reflux, so we're going to give that a try soon.
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| 11 months old |
In December, we also had our first meeting with the CP team at Dayton Children's. It was a 3-hour appointment and we stayed in a room and different specialists took turns visiting us. We met with a developmental pediatrician, orthopedic surgeon, speech pathologist, physical therapist, nurse coordinator, and car seat specialist. The speech pathologist said Hannah seemed on track with her speech, but she gave us some suggestions to help with her eating. The orthopedic surgeon checked her out and said her hips and back look good (which apparently can be an issue with children with CP), and then talked with us about her spasticity (muscles having a difficult time relaxing - resisting movement), as well as what to look for in the future - contractures (muscles contracting), scoliosis, x-rays, and usually a loss of coordination with gross and fine motor skills. Something else he told us that we found informative was that TYPICALLY if a child can sit independently by 2 years of age, he will usually be able to walk eventually. So, overall, it was a very good appointment with lots of information. We go back to see them again in March.
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| 11 months old |
We are so thankful that Hannah is such a happy baby! She smiles so easily and with her entire face. We still have not gotten her to roll from her back to her tummy, which is something we have GOT to get her to do. It's foundational for lots of other milestones - getting up on her hands and knees, crawling, going from laying down to sitting, etc. We've also been working on her sitting and have seen her getting stronger. If we prop her just right, she can sometimes sit by herself for 10 seconds or so, but then she easily topples over. Right now, it's just key for us to get her stronger, which will be a challenge since she's low-tone, meaning that her muscles are weaker. But we will keep working on it! One thing with Hannah is we've had to appreciate the smaller things that you typically don't really recognize with a normal developing child. Over the past 4 months of therapy, she's gained better head control, started opening her hands more and doing some grasping, brought her hands to midline (both hands to the middle of her body), brought objects to her mouth, done some transferring of toys from one hand to the other (usually by accident, but we'll take it!), and some increased strength in her core/stomach area. To be honest, I thought she would be progressing at a much faster rate than she is, so it's been eye-opening for me and a bit of a reality check. It feels as if we're moving at a snails pace, while everyone else is passing us by, but then I remind myself of the progress she has made. It might be slow, but it's progress. So we will continue with therapy and continue to pray for her development.
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