Monday, September 19, 2011

Appointment Rewind

Last week was filled with appointments!

Monday: Gabe had his first occupational therapy appointment at Texas Children's Hospital (TCH). It went great. This appointment (and probably the next few) were to build a rapport with Gabe so Ms. M didn't work him too hard. But he didn't scream or sob at all and only cried a few tears towards the end.

On a side note, can I tell you how great no screaming and crying is? It's fabulous! Gabe cried for the first 10 months of therapy in Cleveland. And it wasn't because of the therapists; they were great and if I could fly them out here weekly to do Gabe's therapy, I would in a heart beat! By the time we moved to Houston Gabe was doing great at therapy; working hard, loving his therapists and hardly ever crying. He bonded with them and loved therapy! Moving to Houston and starting over with therapists - my expectations were very low. I am so glad they were met and beat.

Tuesday: Gabe had his first physical therapy appointment. Matt went with us since that was the morning I pulled a muscle in my back and could hardly move - ack! Again, Gabe did great. His physical therapist most reminds me of the therapists we left; kind, gentle, fun but hard working! Gabe loved swinging (of course) and did well being stretched in the ball pit. Funny story: Gabe has learned to say 'thank you' and says it at the appropriate times. Ms. L (his therapist) was making him climb out of the ball pit in a safe-not-head-first way and Gabe kept thanking her for his help. Except he really wanted to do it his way so he was whining the whole time he kept thanking her.

Wednesday: Gabe had his speech therapy evaluation. The good news is that he is doing stellar in the speech/language area. The bad news is he needs a little help in the oral motor area and will begin speech therapy (feeding therapy) soon. This was expected with the diagnosis of schizencephaly just a little bit of a bummer. Once we add speech therapy to our weekly regime, we will be at TCH four days a week! Gabe also had his 2nd physical therapy appointment. He was a little tired from having done the speech evaluation and only lasted about 35 minutes before he was whiny and letting tears fall. Ms. L kept with it though, helping him cruise the furniture and then rewarded him with a few minutes on the swing! Gabe made me proud when he said "thank you" when he was done swinging. I'm loving this boys manners!



Thursday: Gabe and I ventured downtown in the afternoon to go get glasses! We picked out a pair (you will not believe his adorableness factor in them), Gabe was measured for them, the optometrist priced everything out and then I remembered to ask if they took our vision insurance. They didn't. We've actually had a very hard time finding a eye glass place that takes our insurance so tomorrow I'm going to check with insurance to see if they'll reimburse us for the glasses if we go out of network. We shall see. But people, he looked cute. Seriously cute!


So that was 5 appointments in 4 days and Gabe kept on truckin' right through them all! Add to that the 2 hours a day of eye patching and all of the block building, ball tossing, crawling and cruising practicing, story reading, veggie tale singing we did, Gabe had a busy week!



And nothing is cuter than some diaper fluff on our boy!

1 comment:

Miss Danielle said...

Sounds like you are very busy! Gabe looks great! Miss you guys a ton!