I feel very lucky. It must have been fate that Dallas and I never moved away from Grand Rapids. We are surrounded by pediatric specialists in every field imaginable. I have met many mom's who have to drive hours to get the kind of care we just drive downtown for. We have a Rehabilitation Hospital 10 minutes away with a whole department and wing dedicated to pediatric therapy. So far our experience with them has been a positive one.
This week has been very busy, but all the appointments and therapy haven't slowed Maddy down one bit, she is still her silly self, always on the move and smiling.
The week started with a Physical Therapy evaluation. We were told Maddy is at about a 7 month developmental level for her gross motor skills. We made a list of lots of things to work on with her, and are working towards her being able to sit with proper posture, crawl and get up from laying down on her own, as well as standing with better balance and less assistance. They recommended Physical Therapy twice a week for her for now. Did I mention the therapist thinks they should use Maddy on their billboards? She is already winning over fans on her first day there!
Today we had a Speech Therapy evaluation and Occupational Therapy evaluation. The speech therapist told us they believe Maddy is having trouble with her speech and eating because of low muscle tone. They believe that her language will develop in time once we work on her muscle tone. They gave us some exercises at home and also suggested learning some baby sign language to help her communicate in the mean time.
The Occupational Therapist also evaluated Maddy at around a 6-10 month range depending on the area, but surprisingly, she did the best in visual-motor skills. They also recommended therapy twice a week, but will dedicate one day a week to feeding therapy to assist Maddy in learning to eat solid foods and drink out of a cup.
Looks like we have a busy summer ahead, but we are very excited to get started! Now we just have to survive a busy weekend of partying to celebrate an itsy bitsy birthday party!
Great job on the blog - this will be an inspiration to others and a memoir for Maddy. I'm so glad to hear that your appointments are going well so far. I was wondering, if you'd like to borrow them, we have Baby Signing Time DVDs. Just a thought, since the therapists recommended sign language. Let me know! Hope to see you guys soon!
ReplyDeleteJanna - I would love to borrow them. The Therapist actually recommended we get them, so it will give us a chance to try them out! Thanks a bunch!
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