Hallie's ONH & SOD Blog

Hallie @ Home

November 9th, 2009

We made it home safe and sound.  For the first few days my kids had perma-grins as they reunited with their old toys, books & surroundings.

Many people have asked how Hallie is doing since we’ve been home, so I thought we’d keep going with the blogs.  Adam and I just had a long talk last night about what we think is different with her.  This process of noticing the difference in a persons vision post stem cell therapy was described to us by an adult that had the treatment herself.  She said the improvements are kind of like when you have been wearing glasses that were one prescription less than what you should have been wearing and then right when you put on your new glasses you see in a new & clearer way.  You notice the slight change at first, but ten it becomes the norm.  Well, that’s what we’ve noticed with Hallie.  Slight changes that are becoming the norm.

There are three things we have noticed:

1.  Hallie doesn’t walk into as many walls.  Before stem cells Hallie would hardly ever notice a wall, table, or large object in front of her.  She would walk straight into them and bump her head all the time.  We started to notice in China that she would put her hand up a foot or two away from an approaching wall.  Since we’ve been home she has continued to do the same thing.  She gets close to the wall and turns her head with her left side facing the wall and puts her hand up.  She’s still will bump into things but it just seems like she is navigating around much faster and more confidently.

2.  Her eyes are more open and wander less.  Hallie’s eyes have always wandered and have not always moved together.   She also used to hold her eyes as if she was looking down with her eyes closed.  We have noticed, as well as other people, that Hallie’s eyes move in sync with each other and are open wide more often.

3.  Hallie is interested in colors and holds lighted toys to her eyes.  Before SCT I would drill Hallie with colors and would talk about what things look like ALL the time.  So the way I talk to her about her surroundings now is not much different after the treatmet.  The thing that’s different is that she is interested and continues to talk about what we’ve described.  She’ll repeat, “That chair is blue,” or “That’s a red balloon.”  The other point is that before SCs Hallie would occasionally hold lighted toys up to her eyes.  We would usually have to verbally prompt her for her to be interested.  Now, post treatment Hallie discovers lighted toys on her own.

Thank you for reading and for your interest in our daughters improvements.  It encourages us when other people notice changes in her, so don’t hesitate to leave a comment!

Love,

Katie

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