Wow! What an exhausting but incredible first day at camp. I can't even begin to explain all that happened today and what we experienced, but I will try my very best to reiterate it for you all! (Also...i'm exhausted so forgive my writing skills!) We woke up and I was right on time getting all of Silas' meds for the day ready, made up his formula, showered, woke him up, changed him, and got him dressed and ready for the day. It is so different taking care of Silas by myself, without his nurses help. I know that sounds kind of strange seeing as i'm his mother, but i've become dependent of his nurses to help me with his care, it can be tiring and trying at times, and very repetitive, but I would of course go beyond limits for this kiddo! We rolled on down to breakfast, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then ventured up to our first session. We started out with Archetype. I don't expect you to know what this is, as I am still learning myself! What I know about Archetype so far is that it brings full body awareness allowing Silas to see that he has a central spot in his body that leads out to all extremities. It gives him a central point right below his belly button and extends out to his fingertips and toes and tip of his head. A lot of kiddos with brain injuries aren't aware of that fact that they even have arms or legs, sometimes, if the neuro pathways are being interrupted, not allowing connections to get through to their hands or feet. Silas I believe is somewhat aware, but it is very premature still. He did excellent in his first session with very little to no whining. Mornings are very tough for him, and I was imagining the first few sessions to be very rocky, but he proved me wrong! His therapist was so very kind and gentle, he was very comfortable with her working on him. Our second session of the day was repatterning. This session was focusing on resetting Silas' body and neuro relfex patterns. When the brain injury occurred in Silas his body went into a fear and fight or flight mode mixing up the brains natural reflex patterns and confusing his system. For instance a therapist could be trying to check one of his reflexes and the wrong one will activate. This session will help Silas re-set his system so his reflexes are no longer confused. He did amazing in this session as well. We loved our therapist and learned a lot of new material! Third session was focused on oral and facial. She did a lot of work in and around his mouth, trying to awaken the reflexes for suck and swallow. She also applied some cranial sacral work as well as other techniques to try and shift the asymmetry in his face. On to session four still doing great we walked into his neurostructural session when he lost it...he was finally so overtired and needed a nap. Our therapist was kind enough to send us to lunch early and come back early from lunch to get the rest of his session in. In the mean time Silas hunkered down in the fuffy hotel bed to nap! And boy did he need to nap. He had so much new information put into his body in just 4 hours! He needed to sleep and reset his system for the second half of the day. And that he did. He went down almost immediately, and I unfortunately had to wake him up for his next session. It was time for his proprioceptive and cognitive (prop&cog) session. This session was awesome, he did a lot of rolling on the ground with motivation waiting at each end for him to roll to, his ipad and his star toy, cant go wrong with those items! He did great rolling and seemed to love it! We had a short break after that session and finally went to our last session of the day which was with his home therapist Stephanie who is working the conference! She did tactile on him until it was time to go downstairs to get his assessment from Dr. Masgutova! We walked in and Dr. Masgutova remembered Silas right away from the mini clinic we did in October. We had an amazing assessment! She found that Silas' spasticity had reduced by 20% since seeing him in October 2013. Silas also had a much wider range of flexibility in his body and his awareness to his surroundings had improved. He was so alert and his tracking for objects was spot on. Dr. Masguvota tested Silas' leg cross flexion which is a reflex that brings each leg up by hitting a spot on the opposite side of the body (forgive me MNRI gurus if i'm wording this wrong). She found that Silas had created a new neuro pathway in his brain for this reflex and it was functioning amazingly!!! What a milestone!!! She said so much more during his assessment which I could not quite understand (she is polish afterall) but we will review it tomorrow and I will be able to ask many questions! I cannot wait to see what tomorrow brings. Silas did incredible and I am so impressed with how hard he worked with only having a 40 minute nap! 6 hours of therapy and he passed with flying colors! He is tucked in tight and his brain is working away filing his new information from our day. Good night and here's to a restful sleep to all!
With love,
2 Comments
Kathy Watts
1/16/2014 01:53:17 pm
I am so amazed at how much progress Silas has made in the past year and a half since I've been following your amazing journey with him.
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Ann Stone
1/16/2014 09:40:27 pm
Wow what an achievement you have already reached! So pleased you are able to get this treatment for Silas. You are a great strong family. Continuing to pray for you all to stay strong over this period of treatment to cope with all the new information and separation.
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February 2015
AuthoringHey there! I'm Melly Brown. Super Silas' Mama! I have created this blog to keep all of Silas' supporters updated on Silas' MNRI Journey! Categories |