This & That

This past week was supposed to be full of therapy, but ended being a quiet week as two of our therapist called in sick, and I came down with walking pneumonia (of all things) later in the week. I finally have some energy today, enough to sit on the couch and write a blog, at least ;)

We did make our physical therapy appointment in Cypress on Monday, which actually made me a little bit depressed. Both of our at home therapist for developmental and speech called in sick on Monday.

Physical therapy is hard sometimes. You see progress, then you don't. She does some things SO WELL, then others I feel like we are so far from (walking). She stands against furniture so good, but when we are in the middle of the room, she cripples. Her feet will barely even go on the floor. No balance, no weight, no trying...just fear. We talked about what happens when a child has balance issues and won't walk unassisted. We talked about using a walker (medical) around age two and praying that she will gain some balance in the near future. We are hoping that she will begin to show some signs of standing and walking independently soon, we just wont know until she does it.

The speech therapist ended up coming on Tuesday, which was just an evaluation for Bella. We have had a referral for speech for a few months and are finally getting to have an evaluation. The therapist was super nice and very interested in all of Bella's issues. Bella will be 14 months old this week and has been evaluated at an age level of 7-11 months. We knew that she was pretty far behind, she is actually at this same age level for physical therapy too. They have suggested that we start therapy at 2x per week for right now and increase more if we need too.

The therapist did note that Bella has some high tone in her face, which is what she also has in her trunk/ legs. She said that she has not seen high tone before but also does not think that it is going to affect her rotary chewing too much. She does have rotary movements, but not a lot. We will have to work on this as this is why she is not able to eat many table foods.

We are going to start with something called "food chaining" as well as some muscles exercises to try and stimulate more rotary chewing (where you chew from side to side in your mouth). We are also supposed to put the food into Bella's mouth on one side using our finger to stimulate the rotary movements.

Food chaining was explained to us with an example of a french fry, which is definitely not the healthiest of foods, but an easy example to follow.

When you begin food chaining, you pick one food to use as your "food chaining" food. Each day of the week you use your same food (french fry) and start the week by using a very soft fry. Let her eat it like that then the next day, make it a little bit more firm. By the ended of the week, she should be eating the french fry in a very crunchy form. This way, she is used to the food but gets it in a different texture every day, slowly getting her up to a very textured food.

We are hoping that this is going to help her tolerate other foods. Right now she can only tolerate soft breads, cheese, yogurt, and goldfish (at times). Hopefully in the next few weeks we will be able to say that we have successful introduced another food, or two!

We will also start to do transitional foods in the next few weeks. This is when you introduce a unfamiliar food, with a familiar food. She can only have the familiar food once she tries the unfamiliar, and so forth.

We all bribe our children with "once you eat the rest of this, you can have this", but when it has to do with an actual physical issue rather than just a personal dislike, it becomes more of a problem!

Along with all of the new feeding therapy, we will work on the speech (which will come more when she starts walking) and also start learning some sign language. Sign language is going to be great for Bella to start learning early on so that we will all be prepared if she does loose some of her hearing. It is also a good way for her to express herself until she is walking and talking more :)