It Seems as Though Life Never Slows Down

It has been another very hectic week. It seems like we were running around all week - maybe that is because we were. We spent two afternoons out at Shriner's doing some evaluations. Those went well.

The Speech Therapist at Shriner's was excited to see that we had started to use a speech device with Rebekah. We have a device from Rebekah's school and have been trying to use it periodically. I have to admit that I find it difficult to use, so I haven't been as diligent about it as I should be. The Speech Therapist had some ideas about how to make it better, so hopefully we'll be able to get it working a little better for us. We're also on waiting lists for a couple of other devices which are "dynamic" which should be a bit less frustrating (at least for mom). They may also be able to help us to get funding for another device, once we know what works for Rebekah. I wish we could know today and start moving forward, but it just doesn't work that way. Ugh! We should be able to get some help working with the speech device from Shriner's. We need to get it scheduled and see how it goes.

The Physical Therapist (PT) and Occupational Therapist (OT) were both impressed with how many skills Rebekah does have. As for Physical Therapy, her biggest area of delay has to do with balancing on one foot and the tasks that require that - walking up and down stairs, kicking a ball, stepping over objects, walking on balance beams, etc... Rebekah's Physical Therapy skills are good enough that they really don't have the ability to help her out since there are too many patients who have more severe problems than she does. Occupational Therapy was a bit different. Again, Rebekah's skills are good, but she does have issues with strength especially her left side. Rebekah will be able to get some Occupational Therapy from Shriner's with sessions every other week or so. Part of that will probably include some overlap into Physical Therapy areas, too. We are hoping to coordinate the OT sessions with the Speech (device) sessions.

There is more that will be coming shortly but for now we wanted to at least get you partially filled in on what is happening...