Posts filed under 'Photos'
Since my last entry I’ve posted at least a couple batches of photos. Make sure you check them out! They extend far beyond those found on the front page of this site.
Just a quick update…yes, we are all still alive and kicking! I know it has been a long time since I updated the blog; I guess we’ve been a little busy. Here’s a brief list of what’s been going on: Anna’s been walking around a lot lately – it’s become her primary mode of locomotion at this point; she’s had another ear infection; she’s been fitted for a new Dynamic Ankle Foot Orthotic (DAFO) for her left foot, so that she will hopefully walk correctly (heel-toe, not toe-heel); I was sick for a couple of weeks; Neal was sick for a couple of weeks; Granny and Papa came to visit; Anna played a lot with Henry; she’s been increasing her vocabulary substantially; Neal received a promotion; and we recently purchased a new car. Doesn’t sound like a lot when you write it down, but it seems like we’ve been very busy lately.
September, October and November are gearing up to be extremely hectic months. If she isn’t already, Anna will be fed up with doctors and clinics (I’m sure I will be too, and I’m not the one being poked, pulled and stretched). We have Anna’s 18 month check-up coming soon (she’ll be 18 months in a little more than a week!). And then we have all of her specialist appointments – neurologist, opthamalogist, neuropsychologist, and physiatrist (rehab doctor). We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of Anna’s diagnosis. It’s hard to believe that it has been only a year. Sometime in October we’ll also be having Anna’s 6-month reevaluation for her IFSP (Individualized Family Service Plan). This is basically a powwow among Anna’s therapists, our early intervention service coordinator, and us where we discuss Anna’s progress and our goals for the next 6-month period.
In late October Anna will be receiving her Botox treatment. No, she doesn’t have wrinkles. Doctors often use Botox in children with cerebral palsy to relieve/reduce spasticity (high muscle tone) in select muscle groups. The physiatrist will be injecting Botox into several of Anna’s arm muscles. This will hopefully allow her to strengthen the opposing muscles that aren’t able to do much because of those muscles with high tone. Of course, this makes Neal and me more than a little nervous. I mean, the stuff is poison. And she’s still so little. They say that the injections are painful, which makes me feel terrible for putting her through this. I guess the one saving grace is that she probably won’t remember this (?). I certainly hope she doesn’t.
After the Botox treatment, Anna will begin her second round of constraint therapy at Children’s in Denver. As a reminder, this is a 3-week intensive therapy program where Anna’s good arm is casted in an attempt to make her use her affected arm. We see an occupational therapist down at Children’s 3 times per week, and we do a lot of work at home. She wears the cast from the moment she wakes up until she goes to sleep. Fun!
Anna has made a lot of progress since her last round of constraint therapy in March/April. Since we finished up the first round in April, we’ve continued to wear the cast all-day for 2 days per week and during each and every evening meal. It will be interesting to see what goals we establish for this phase. The treatment period will last right up to the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I’ve been joking about the fact that this year we will have something for which to be truly thankful: a few cast-free days!
September 7th, 2007
Just a quick post to let folks know that we’ve posted some new pictures on Flickr. These include pictures from our trip to Kansas to visit family.
I’ll try to post an update on what we’ve been up to soon!
June 10th, 2007
Tara just posted a whole bunch of new photos, including some from Easter. Ms. Anna looks especially cute in her Easter dress. (Thanks Granny!)
Anna’s been doing really well lately. We’re seeing her use her left hand more and more each day, and the girl is really starting to think about walking. She can already stand by herself for as much as 10 seconds at a time! Her growing vocabulary includes such favorites as dog (“dahg”), cat (“at”), ball (“ba”), balloon (“ba”), up (“bap”), mom (“mama”) and dad (“ba”). (Context is key here, obviously).
Most importantly, she’s been generally healthy (knock on wood!) and happy. Or as happy as anyone cutting as many new teeth as she is can be.
Note: I’ve changed the way the photos on the sidebar work. First, there are more of them, and clicking on them should now take you directly to our Flickr site where you can view all our photos in different galleries and sizes. Whee!
April 16th, 2007
Today we journeyed down to Children’s Hospital to have Anna’s cast made. It was a tramatic experience for Anna (and for me! She looked at me as if to say, “Why are you letting them do this to me?”). For those of you who do not know, we are casting Anna’s right hand to encourage the use of her left. During the next three weeks we will be doing intensive therapy using her left hand. We’ll be attending therapy at Children’s three days a week and we’ll be continuing our normal therapy sessions here at home. Needless to say it will be a busy time for us.
This weekend will be an adjustment period during which Anna will hopefully become more accustomed to having the cast on. Seeing her with her dominant hand out of the picture today made me realize how far we’ve come, and yet how far we have to go in regards to the functioning of her left hand. It was something of a reality check for me. I think it caught me unawares. Her evaluation at Children’s added to that reality check; the doctors/therapists spelled out what Anna’s issues were in a rather clinical way. It all sounded so negative. As to be expected, they were evaluating her from this point in time, without regard to how far Anna has come in the last 4 months since we started her therapy. For some reason it was hard to hear.
As if getting your dominant hand casted were not enough, we had Anna’s 12-month check-up today (and no, I didn’t plan on having both of these events happen on the same day!). Everything about her development looks good. She still doesn’t weigh enough for us to be able to turn her car seat around (darn). In fact, the doctor was still a bit concerned about her weight gain. She’s fallen into the 25th percentile in her weight – 19 lbs. 12 oz. She holding strong to the 90-95th percentile for height, however (31 1/2 inches). Some of her meager weight gain may be due to the fact that she’s had a stomach/intestinal bug this last week. I won’t go into detail…suffice it to say, carseats are not meant to handle vomit. Anna also has developed another ear infection in her right ear. So we’re back on the antibiotics. Silver lining: no shots today because she has an infection.
I posted a ton of pictures from Anna’s birthday party and Granny and Papa Rex’s visit to Colorado. I’ll work on posting some short movies of Anna eating her cake and such.
March 16th, 2007
It seems like it has been awhile since I posted new pictures. We also have a few movies to show.
Anna has been doing some great things with her left hand! The first movie is of Anna crawling (almost 3MB). It was taken about 5 days ago and she has already improved immensely in her speed and synchronicity. The video is pretty grainy because of the poor lighting conditions.
The other two movies were captured this evening. Anna and I have been working on using her left hand to grasp things. She has difficulties rotating her arm and hand inward, which makes feeding herself with her left hand quite diffcult. Using a long cookie or a spoon, we’ve been working on maintaining her grasp and rotating her arm and hand to get the cookie or spoon to her mouth. She’s caught on and now wants to feed herself yogurt with her left hand (2.5MB). Notice I’m not constraining her right hand at all.
The last clip shows Anna banging on the table with her left hand (almost 2MB). This is the first time Anna has banged repeatedly (and rapidly) on anything using her left hand. Actually, it is the first time she’s done anything that rapidly with her left hand. Of course we’re not neurologists, but we feel this shows that her brain is working to send multiple, rapid signals to her left hand. The video is pretty grainy because of the poor lighting conditions.
Anna is such an amazing little girl. Neal and I often find ourselves on the verge of happy tears when we witness her doing new things with her left hand. She’s truly come so far! Now if only she’d grow some more hair… 
February 28th, 2007
A couple of new things to report regarding Ms. Anna. First of all, you may have noticed that Anna is wearing a splint on her left hand in some of her pictures. They call it a Joe Cool strap and it is designed to keep Ann’s thumb out of the palm. Anna generally tucks her thumb under her fingers when she makes a fist and it often stays there even when she opens her hand. This makes it incredibly difficult for her to grab anything. The splint prevents this from happening. She doesn’t seem to mind wearing it and it does what it is supposed to do. In our opinions (and that of her therapist), she is better able to grasp things with her left hand now that her thumb isn’t in the way.
We took Anna in for an RSV follow up and weigh in on Friday. Fortunately, her ears have cleared up and she looks to be in good health. The other good news is Anna’s weight gain. She gained over 1 lb. in a little less than a month! Anna has turned into a heavy-hitter when it comes to eating. I’m amazed at how much that little body can put away.
And lastly…a little rant on my part. I hate insurance companies. My employer is switching one of our insurance plans (the one Anna and I are on) to a vastly reduced plan with very very few doctors in our area. We’re now supposed to drive to Aurora (southeast Denver metro area) for Anna’s therapy and to visit a hospital. In its stead they are offering a crapppy plan with a high deductible. Grrr…. And we’re also having to jump through several hoops to get some of Anna’s therapy approved by our current insurance plan. Universal healthcare…I’ll vote for it in a heartbeat. You shouldn’t have to look at your finances to determine whether or not you can give your family the care they deserve/need.
I’m hoping to post a few pics soon…Anna had some spaghetti today. It was a mess, but she certainly had a good time.
February 11th, 2007
Josie and Henry came over to visit Anna and me today. Jo and I decided that both kinds were kind of stinky, so we thought it would be fun to give them a bath together. They had a BLAST! There are a few pictures I uploaded of the event. We also were able to shoot a short movie (a little over 4MB).
We also uploaded earlier this week a couple of pictures of Anna in her new felt cowgirl hat. She received it along with a whole bunch of new outfits from her great uncle Mike and Julie. Thanks so much!!
February 8th, 2007
The title pretty much sums up the time since our last post.
We spent Christmas in Kansas this year. This was Anna’s first Christmas, which was actually a lot of fun. She had no idea what she was doing, but she enjoyed ripping paper off. Not so that she could see what was under the paper, but so that she could eat the paper. We had to keep a pretty close eye on her with all that paper laying around. We had a great time visiting with all the grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins!
Due to the snow storm in Colorado and Kansas over the weekend of the New Years holiday, we stayed in Kansas a couple of days longer than anticipated. We had a room booked at the Burlington High School gymnasium, but thankfully we didn’t need to use it! We returned to Longmont on Monday night to find that our driveway was completely shoveled! Thank you Andy and Barbara (our next door neighbors). However, the plows finally came though on our street and deposited a large mound of icy snow in front of our driveway. After an 11 hour drive we had to dig ourselves out of the mound so that we could pull the car into the driveway. Not something you want to do at 11pm. Especially considering we all had to return to work the very next day!
Anna made it to daycare on Tuesday and Wednesday that week and by the weekend she was sick AGAIN! On Saturday she had a very high fever and on Sunday she had labored breathing. We interrupted our Christmas with Neal’s parents and cousin Sandra to take Anna to the urgent care clinic on the advice of our on-call doctor. The on-call doc said that we should begin to be concerned when her respirations per minute reached 40-50; Anna’s were 80 when we left the house and 96 when we reached urgent care! While there they had her do a breathing treatment, which is a lot of fun with an infant (NOT). They also tested her for RSV and influenza. Unfortunately she tested positive for RSV. If you haven’t had a child recently, you may not know that RSV is a potentially very dangerous respiratory virus for babies. It manifests itself as a cold for adults and older children, but it wreaks havoc on the ability of infants to get enough oxygen. It is also highly contagious, so no daycare for at least a week.
Anna was KO’d for that entire week. She didn’t begin to feel better until the following Friday. Even then she was still not her usual jovial self! The fever continued throughout the week. She developed two ear infections. And breathing remained an issue. Every night for a week we gave her a breathing treatment using a home nebulizer (again, a lot of fun). And then the cough started. It was just a terribly horrible week. Anna slept with me because the doctors wanted us to monitor her breathing; Neal slept on the couch. In sum, no one slept very well. On Monday we went back to the doctor to see if she would be cleared for daycare starting this last Tuesday. Unfortunately, she was still wheezing and rattling so we were told to wait for a couple of days. To top off that fabulous time, Anna gave me her virus. So now I’m coughing all night!
Last but not least, Anna is cutting more teeth! She now has 3 on the bottom, her two front teeth on top are coming in nicely, and she’s started to cut one of her first year molars. Needless to say, she is a drooling queen and has been quite fussy lately. It’s hard to tell whether she is fussy because of her sickness or because of the teeth. Maybe it’s a combination of both.
I posted some new pictures as well. I want to upload some new movies, but I need to use Neal’s desktop to do that. I’ll try to do that sometime this weekend. We have a couple of really good ones.
Oh, and on the therapy front, Anna is cruising around on the furniture now. We still aren’t hands-and-knees crawling, but we are continuing to work on that. I’m of the opinion now that she will walk before she crawls (on her hands and knees). She’s also doing a great job pulling to stand on her own. Now, if we could just get her to sit up from commando crawling, we’d be in business. Her OT today was absolutely amazed with Anna’s use of her left arm. She had expected a bit of a regression given the fact that Anna was out of commission for more than a week, but she was pleasantly suprised to find that Anna had actually gained skills. Baby girl truly is amazing. We’ve got some interesting therapy news on the horizon. I won’t elaborate now because it is still in the works, but I’ll be sure to share when we know more.
January 18th, 2007
I’m sure everyone has heard the news reports of the blizzard that hit the Denver metro area starting yesterady. I’ve included some photos of the aftermath of that storm. It snowed pretty consistently from Wednesday morning until Thursday noon. The streets are still pretty much a mess in our neighborhood. The plow probably won’t hit us because we live on a cul de sac. I started shoveling on Wednesday during the storm. I probably shoveled almost a foot of snow at that time. By the time I was finished with the drive, the front steps were completely covered, as was the part of the drive I shoveled first. And boy, am I thankful I shoveled some on Wednesday because we had another foot plus some to shovel today. And thats not including the areas with snow drifts. We are extremely thankful to our neighbor, Andy, who helped me shovel today. Neal’s not allowed to do any physical activity for three weeks after his eye surgery. We don’t want him to go blind! So it was all me on shovel-duty. I imagine I’m going to be pretty sore tomorrow. I think I’ll take some ibuprofen tonight.
December 21st, 2006
Where did November go? We’ve had a lot going on lately – family visiting, changing jobs, therapy appointments. I often feel as if I’m running just to stand still.
Hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday. We spent Thanksgiving in Fort Collins with Neal’s family this year. His brother and sister-in-law flew in from Southern California and his cousin from Germany, Sandra, joined us, too. She’s currently doing a study abroad program at a school in Aspen. This was Sandra’s first Thanksgiving celebration. The verdict? She likes pumpkin pie, but she likes pecan pie better. 
All of the relatives enjoyed spending time with Anna and it seemed Anna enjoyed spending time with them! I’ve uploaded some pictures of our festivities.
While Colin and Roby were here we had an early Christmas. Anna enjoyed opening everyone’s presents (actually, that’s a lie…she enjoyed eating the paper. The opening of the presents was simply a means to an end). Thank you Colin and Roby for the gifts! The reader you gave Neal has already been put to good use. Did you know that dolphins nap with one eye open?
Anna’s recovering from another one of her month-long colds. At the one month mark I took her to the doctor. From her symptoms the doctor thought she probably had a sinus infection. She’s in the middle of a 10-day course of antibiotics right now. God bless the person who created flavored medications. I can’t imagine these antibiotics taste very good on their own, but with flavoring Anna actually likes them. When I say she likes them, I mean she gets all excited when I bring out the medicine-filled dropper. I suppose it could be worse, she could hate them and kick, scream and spit when I gave them to her, but there’s just something wrong about a baby getting super-excited about taking medication. She does the same thing with the Tylenol. Yippeee…give me my drugs!
I forgot to mention that Anna has gone to her first swim lesson (loosely defined). We thought it would be a good idea to introduce her to the water earlier rather than later, and also thought that the water might have a therapeutic benefit. Anna’s therapists agreed. In water she gets instant feedback when she moves her arms or legs. She seemed to like it, but the water in the pool was very chilly. Thank goodness the lesson only lasted about 30 minutes; otherwise we might have had an Anna-cicle on our hands. We bought a little nyoprene swimsuit that should keep her trunk a bit warmer. We haven’t had a chance to try it out yet because Anna’s been sick. I hope that we’re all healthy this Saturday for her next lesson. We’ll see if the wetsuit makes a difference.
I’m going to post a movie soon of Anna babbling. The week before Thanksgiving Anna went from single syllable vocalizations to babbling like a brook. It is such a joy to listen to her “ba ba ba ba ga ba da da”. She’ll talk to anyone who will listen, and even those who don’t. It was the most bizarre thing, she literally started babbling overnight. On Wednesday she wasn’t saying much of anything, and on Thursday she wouldn’t stop talking. She’s also figured out how to make noises by moving her fingers over her lips. She’ll even mimic you if you do it first. She’s got “dada” down pat; we’re stil working on “mama”. And we *think* we may be seeing the beginnings of Anna’s first sign: food! It’s honestly hard to tell whether she’s just being orally fixated at the moment or actually trying to communicate.
This last Friday our daycare arranged for Santa to visit during the morning. Friday isn’t one of our normal daycare days, but I wanted Anna to have a picture with Santa. We dressed up in a new dress that Granny Debbie bought and stopped by the daycare center. It was so fun to watch all the kids of different ages sit on Santa’s lap. Several from Anna’s room were completely freaked out by the man in the red suit. When it was Anna’s turn the photographer told me to keep Anna facing away from Santa while I placed her on his lap. Tricks of the trade, I guess. Anna was fine with Santa. She stared at his beard (she has a thing for men with facial hair and hats) and seemed quite content. She wouldn’t smile despite my efforts at tickling her and generally making a fool of myself. All was well until…Santa spoke. She started crying and the photo-shoot was over.
In other news, Anna’s therapy is going well. Despite a two-week interruption of our routine, her therapists still see she’s making progress. This is a good thing because I was feeling tremendously guilty for not being as diligent as I could have been about making sure we did all our exercises. I guess this is something that I’m going to have to get used to. There will be weeks when Anna’s therapy schedule is thrown off by holidays, illness, whatever. Being a goal-oriented person, I am finding it difficult to remember that this is a long process, and that nothing is going to change overnight – no matter how many exercises I do with her. Anna has made such incredible progress in the short time since we’ve been working with her. Neal reminds me constantly to think about where we were just a few months ago. He also acknowledges how hard this is for everyone. We’re having to teach Anna many of the skills her peers just learn on their own. That said though, Anna is very bright and picks up on things rather quickly. This evening she amazed us both by following the steps she learned on Thursday to pull herself up to standing (with help, of course). Those are the moments when I am so incredibly proud of her.
Anna is still commando-crawling, and getting pretty good at it, I might add. She seems to resist going up onto all fours. Her arm is getting stronger and stronger, though. She’s also using her arm/hand much more these days. She’s bringing it to midline to play with toys (as a helper hand). Anna’s occupational therapist has recommended that we get a Joe Cool strap for her thumb. This strap should help pull her thumb out so that it isn’t tucked in as much. Kathy thinks that this might encourage her to play even more with her left hand. As I mentioned previously, Anna is working on the steps to pull herself to standing. She has been attempting the brute force method for the past week or so – trying to pull up using just her arm strength. Her physical therapist thought it would be best to teach her the proper steps before she develops some bad habits. Pulling up is a big challenge because she isn’t really transitioning well from being on her tummy to sitting. It would all be a lot easier on Anna if she were able to get up on all fours, but we’re working on it nonetheless. We’re also working on helping Anna recognize that her left hand can do things independently of her right (i.e. that she can have objects in both hands and can chew on either one of them). This one is going to take a lot of patience on both our parts.
December 3rd, 2006
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