Archive for September, 2008
We have been home for 5 days now and are quickly getting back into routine. Mum & Jared are very happy to have us home again and the feelings mutual. Mum was very impressed with Corey’s ability to sit unsupported. When we put him in the sitting position and stay close correcting him for a minute or so, he relaxes in that position to the point now where we can move back from him. We need to make sure that if he does fling himself back that he can’t hurt himself. This is a big improvement for him. He can now play with his brother in the sand pit (picture below), sit and play in the sand on the beach and much more. I think this has given him more confidence in himself as he reaches out more and tries more things.
Mum was also impressed in how he can lift his walker when turning and how much better control he has of his left hand (where previously this hand was fairly tight). He can now hold a mug with two hands and drink independently, where previously he had to use a sipper cup. He’s still talking lots, we have to be careful what we say around him as he repeats things constantly.
He had his first Physio session on Friday. He cooperated well with Terese. Terese works a lot on his coordination, where in China they concentrated on his stretching, in particular his legs. Terese noticed the improvement in his torso and we are all looking forward to the coming months.
Once again thanks to everyone for your comments they were very supportive.
September 13th, 2008
After 33 days in a hospital in China we are ready to return home. We have been doing the rounds saying goodbye to everybody. Corey’s back pain must be getting better as he is walking for longer periods. While packing last night Corey was watching teletubbies and he was singing along with a song and clapping. I noticed that he was clapping moving both hands. He would previously clap moving his right hand only as he has more tightness in his left hand. But he was moving both hands.
The improvements to date that I believe Corey has had are:
Speech has improved however I can’t be certain that this has happened due to his treatment here. Torso strength, this is definitely an improvement that has happened here due to his treatment. Alert, he is more active, can’t sit still when holding him, wants to touch everything. Better hands movement and control.
It will be interesting to see once we get home what mummy sees as she will only know him from when we left home and should be a better judge. Based on what I have been told he should continue having progressive improvement and the stem cells should be in full swing in approx. 6 months.
As mentioned earlier, the staff here have been very kind giving Corey lots of hugs and kisses. They will be missed. But we can’t wait to get home. Below are photos of us saying our goodbyes to the PT guys and doctors.
September 2nd, 2008
Corey had his last treatment on Wednesday, which was a spinal. He’s got the process all worked out. He tolerated it all pretty well until we got to the operating theatre. Once we got their he didn’t want a bar of the anesthetic. He screamed. It doesn’t hurt, they put it in through the IV that’s already in his hand. But he put up a fight, once the drugs kicked in he was asleep. He was fine waking up, looking around to see where I was. For the first 3 hours he was relaxed. He lay still however he didn’t go to sleep. Then he started getting restless. I thought he might be hungry so as it approached the 4 hr mark I made him something to eat, but he didn’t want it. He was getting worse so I called for the doctor. He started really crying and began vomiting (not that he had anything to vomit except stomach acid). By this stage the doctor had arrived. He arranged for Corey to have a injection in his leg to stop the vomiting and calm him down. This took about 20 mins to kick in. Once he calmed down his eyes got heavy and he eventually went to sleep. The doctors believe he had a reaction to the anesthetic. I thought it was strange as he had already had 3 before and didn’t have this reaction. The doctor said that people can react differently following each treatment. Perhaps it was because he got so upset when receiving the anesthetic. The next day Corey was feeling better. As the day progressed his appetite returned to normal and he was fine. They cancelled his PT for the day to let him have a good days rest. Since than we have continued working on our PT. His sitting up is getting better all the time. He is actually trying to sit up in bed on his own. He isn’t succeeding yet but the fact that he is trying really shows how much more aware he is of his front torso muscles. He pulls himself forward in the stroller now which again he wouldn’t do before. I am slowly getting a little further away from him once I’ve put him in the sitting position.
Unfortunately the walking isn’t progressing that much. He seems to still have some discomfort when he weight bears in the standing position. I asked the doctors about this today and they said to not push to hard with the walking yet as he may still be getting lower back pain where they did the injections.
We have one more day of PT (Monday) and than on Tuesday we catch our plane home. I plan to do one more update before departing China. Than I hope to keep it up (most likely less frequent) from home.
Your comments have been very much appreciated by us both and we look forward to getting home and catching up with you all again.
September 1st, 2008
