zaavan co. and beepBo

Saturday, March 11, 2006

feelin' the flow....workin' it...


this week zaavan had his first suplemental therapies at the courage center! it has literally taken me months to orchestrate these appointments because of all the procedural hoopla i had to deal with, so now that it's finally happening i'm very excited to see how zaavan will respond. he will have speech, physical and occupational therapy each once a week above and beyond what he already gets at his school. tuesday was his first speech session and honestly it did not impress me. zaavan wasn't really into the new speech pathologist,(he'll just have to get to know her)so he was distracted. he didn't want to make choices for activities and wasn't activating his switch purposefully. on top of that i had to feed him during his session in order to keep to his strict schedule and that was a huge inconvenience! i'm going to have to think of a better way. we all have our off days so i'm hopeful that next weeks session goes better.
on thursday he had his first PT/OT sessions back to back and i'm delighted to say that it was a raging success! zaavan had the best PT ever! he was so on it was amazing. he was completely focused, making eye contact, making choices clearly and consistently, reaching for and grasping objects with real purpose. his therapist brought out a toy called a "bumble ball" which is a ball that vibrates and bounces around independently when turned on. zaavan loved it! the vibration was actually making him smile when typically he isn't interested at all. he was attempting to turn the ball on and off by himself, and when he got it on he was grasping it so tightly that is was vibrating his whole body! his little arms were shaking and he was just smiling big and having fun. a particularly amazing thing that he did was try to taste the ball while it was on. he was opening his mouth and bringing the ball up to his face! he got it on his lips and held it there for a few seconds. tears came to my eyes, because that is HUGE! a little background: zaavan has an extreme oral aversion. he doesn't like anything (with the exception of his own thumb or fist) even coming near his mouth, or face for that matter. he only just recently started letting me brush his teeth by opening slightly. so watching him show interest in a toy enough to try to taste it was awesome! typically abled children explore and learn about the world around them by putting everything into their mouths. not so with zaavan. another really cool thing was his choice making. he actually shook his head "no" when he didn't want to stand and play! we asked him 3 different times to be sure he was understanding us and also to make sure our eyes weren't decieving us. each time we asked, "zaavan do you want to stand up and play?", and with only a slight delay, he shook his head "no" violently! we then asked him if he wanted to play with the bumble ball more (something we knew he wanted) and asked him "do you want to play with the ball more, yes or no?" he promptly looked at the ball and looked at his PT signaling a definite yes! i gotta tell ya, as a mother i was so proud i was beaming! something that might seem small and insignificant is seen as a mountain of an accomplishment to me. maybe i'm lucky to take complete joy in even the tiniest amount of progress. parents of "normal" kids take joy in the first word, first step, first time they tie their shoes. i'm taking joy in something as basic as my son making eye contact with me. how many parents get to be excited by saying "my kid put a toy in his mouth today, yeah!". i guess big miracles come in small packages. if you are a parent, don't forget to praise your children for their accomplishments, big or small. and don't forget to praise the giver of the best gift you'll ever get. peace.

2 Comments:

  • At 7:02 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    Getting to hear you share about Zaavan's progress Friday night and again today in church has made me think of the journey you have been on to get to this wonderfully encouraging time. When Zaavan had reflux, finally had to have the g-tube, etc it seemed so unfair that he was going through so much. Yet today I was thinking that if he had not had the tube, making the decision for the ketogenic diet would have been much more difficult. Amazing the twists and turns on this path!! Keep holding tight and allowing us to share the journey.
    Love you

     
  • At 10:15 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    thank you judie for your kind words. and lexi as well. i have been internally working on a much longer post called "the life of zaavan and the ketogenic diet" to chronicle all the circumstances in his life that have initially been confusing and difficult, but all came together in an instant and lead us directly to tihs wonderful place he is at now. almost as if this course of events was directly tailored to suit everyone involved. it is a grand story and i should love to tell it some day.

     

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