While we were in Disney, Norah started walking while holding our hands.
She was doing a few steps at that point. She also became quite motivated to pull up and keep standing with support while we were there. Wes would play on the beds and she wanted to see.
She has progressed since then! She takes more and more steps while holding our hands. While we were camping with my parents a couple weekends ago, she walked holding my hand and Allyssa's hand and walked up the hill from the lake and down the road to our camp site. I realize that isn't an actual distance, but, trust me, it was a long way! She has loved walking down the sidewalk on our street, too, and she gets mad when we turn around to come back to our house.
At therapy, we have been working on trying to get her to cruise or walk with an object so we can improve her balance as well as her strength. Norah was supposed to have therapy last week with both ChildServe and Early Access, but she had Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease (UGH!), so we skipped both. We ended up being able to reschedule CS for earlier this week, but her Early Access therapist is on vacation for the 4th now.
At ChildServe, she did quite a bit of cursing towards toys. She wanted to just climb up on the table (Oh, yeah, she climbs up on couches all the time, too. I forgot to mention that), but when she got over that she did take several side steps.
She doesn't like the push toy they had and seemed afraid to stand with it, so Jill found a table with wheels and we used that. It was a little higher than would be ideal, but Norah did take some steps while holding onto it. She cried the whole time, but she did not totally shut down like she has been known to do!
We will start back to ChildServe weekly at the recommendation of Dr. Noble.... Yes, that is right! We got in to see Dr. Noble on June 20 instead of having to wait until October. I got a call the day before saying they had a cancellation and asking if we could bring Norah in. It was the second time they had called, but the first time there was no way to make it work and I was pretty upset about not being able to take advantage of it, so I was relieved when they called again only a few days later!
We went to Blank with low expectations about how Norah would do. Remember when we took her to CS in Johnston to see Dr. Fred? Yeah, she was in meltdown mode the whole time and it did not go well. We had very high expectations for Dr. Noble though because we have heard awesome, wonderful things from everyone who knows him, whether it be other doctors and medical professionals or parents who have taken their kids to him. He did not disappoint!
The nurse (her name is escaping me right now...??) was awesome with Norah and was able to get her height, weight, and vitals without Norah crying, which is, quite frankly, miraculous. We had done medical history forms before we got there and she asked us a few questions about things on there and then we had a little time to play before Dr. Noble came to see Norah. The rooms at the Blank clinic were huge and comfy, which I think helped a lot in keeping Norah mellow.
Dr. Noble came in and talked to us and watched Norah play quite a bit before trying to examine her, and I think that helped a lot. She had some time to adjust to him being there. She showed off for him, too. He got to see her scoot that seems to baffle every doctor and therapist she meets, as well as her crawl (she will crawl if you tell her to now but still prefers the scoot), her pulling up, and her walking with hands.
We said he sees a lot of kids her age that don't walk and they are typically in one of two categories. They are like Norah and have hit the other milestones besides gross motor pretty typically and will walk when they get the motivation or they have a long list of other delays/deficits/whatever you want to call this... I am glad he put Norah in the category of will walk when she is ready.
Anyway, Norah did get a little upset with him when he was doing the physical exam and checking her hips, but still nothing like the epic meltdowns we have experienced.
Dr. Noble wants us to continue her PT both places and gave us some new codes to try with Coventry (Would you be surprised that both Dr. Noble and his nurse had experienced Coventry being hard to deal with in the past?!?), and he put hypertonia down in hopes that they would stop seeing this just as a developmental delay.
He seemed to agree with others that Norah has some sensory issues, and he thinks that is why she started scooting. Now, she is a little less sensitive to textures and having her feet touched, but she is so fast at scooting that she still doesn't have a ton of motivation to walk on her own (though the motivation does seem to be coming finally).
He has a few blood tests he wants to run on her when we do her 2 year labs and would like her to have her eyes checked around the same time, too.
We go back to him in October and if she hasn't progressed we will talk about x-raying her hips and then an MRI possibly. I was happy to hear that he agreed with Dr. Nau's hesitation on doing that just yet. I really hate the idea of her having to have anesthesia so little. We will do it if we have to, but I don't want to rush into that. He also did say that her soft spot (yeah, that's not the term he used, but it's the one I am going with) is still pretty open, but still within the typical range.
I felt a lot better after we left there. He is an awesome doctor and if he isn't overly worried about Norah and whether she will walk, it puts my mind at ease. I obviously wish we wouldn't have had to wait so long, but we did at least get in considerably earlier that we were going to!
That's where we are with Norah. I still wish I had the ability to look in a crystal ball and see where we will be in a year, but I am feeling better about things at least.
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