I'm beginning to notice a few changes

Hi all. Thank you for reading our blog and following Sam's progress.  We really appreciate the kind emails and texts sending us well wishes and prayers.  Keep them coming! They are encouraging and help us to remember there is more to life than just therapies.

Sam is having an intense week with therapies.  I can tell that he is working hard during OT.  If a person were to casually observe the therapy session, it would look like Sam is just playing around.  But there is much more going on than just play.  Today he was sitting on the floor with his legs folded underneath him.  He was sitting in a "W" position, so his bum was sitting on the floor rather than on his legs.  Lindsay, the OT, moved Sam's legs to form the traditional parallel leg posture, and I could tell this was much harder for Sam.  He was still playing the game, but he had to use his core stomach muscles much more to sit up straight.  After a few minutes, he laid out on the floor and rested.  It wasn't a big change, but he had to work so much harder to keep the same position.

Speech is going well.  I wish we could have Carrie as our ST at home.  Today during therapy he said: bunny, help, stop, go, want, that, there, hop, sleep, momma, baby, ouch, pull and where.  The words aren't perfect, but I think Sam LOVES being able to communicate his thoughts and ideas more. Carrie picks up on so much of Sam's language that I miss.  She can understand Sam's words more than I can, and she has only been with Sam for four therapy sessions. I look forward to seeing what else comes of these speech sessions in the time we have together.  I am so glad that we decided to add the speech therapy into our treatments plan while we are here.

I spoke to Lindsay, the OT, today about some differences that I am noticing in Sam.  In the evenings, Sam wants to sit on the couch and watch TV.  If you know Sam the way I know him, this is VERY strange behavior. The only time he sits on the couch quietly and watches TV is when sick.  I took his temperature and watched him closely the last two nights, but he seems to be healthy.  When I brought this up with Lindsay, she said it was something that we needed to monitor closely.  Since the therapy sessions are hard work for Sam, we need to make sure we are not overdoing the workload and taxing his body and brain too much.  I will continue to watch him closely over the next few evenings.

Here is a picture of Sam during his nap yesterday.  We didn't get much sleep the night before, so he was very tired.  In fact, he had already been asleep for three hours when I took this picture.  I was trying to wake him up to go to his afternoon therapy appointment, and he was having none of it.  Finally I bribed him to get up by telling him he could take his blanket into the car on the way to therapy.  Poor guy was tired.

Thank you for your continued prayers.  We have one more week here in Denver before we head home for Christmas.  We will be back in Denver again on January 3 for more therapies.