Occupational and Developmental Therapy Day

Hannah enjoying her developmental therapy (not staring at the ring LOL!)

Today was a good day. 

Thanks to the decongestant, she had a much better night sleeping (and so did I!).  Between that and starting her antibiotics for her ear infection, she seemed like she was almost back to her happy self.

I decided to keep her OT evaluation at the hospital because it takes a couple of months to get an appointment.  Pat, the OT therapist was wonderful!  We mostly discussed her feeding issues as well as her stiff neck and trunk muscles.  I feel like I learned so much just from one appointment!

She believes Hannah still has reflux issues, which is why she arches her back so often to try and relieve the burning  (Our pediatrician decided to start her on Prevacid 15 mg starting tomorrow).  She was encouraged by the fact Hannah loves putting things in the front of her mouth (she sat for 30 minutes chewing on a spoon), so she wants us to start working on desensitizing the back of her mouth and on her gums with our fingers.  She also wanted us to do quite a few exercises to help loosen up her cheek and jaw muscles. 

Also, she gave me some exercises to help Hannah loosen up her neck and trunk muscles since Hannah HATES us trying to manipulate her and stretch those areas out.  She actually didn’t fight the therapist with these new exercises, so we will definitely incorporate those.

She is going to put Hannah on her schedule as soon as possible.  She seems very motivated and, after discussing Hannah’s condition for quite a while, she thinks these feeding issues are something that she can overcome sooner than later.  Yay!

Then later this afternoon, we had developmental therapy with Jenny, the DT from ECI.  Hannah absolutely loves her.  She smiles everytime she sees Jenny, it is so cute!  Hannah has made huge strides in the past couple of weeks (we missed an appt last week) thanks to some suggestions from her new PT therapist at the hospital. 

Hannah showed off how she can stand against a big ball (see pic) and balance by herself.  She LOVES standing up!  Once we get her orthotic braces, I really feel we are going to see huge advances in her ability to stand and, hopefully, walk.  Everyone feels that she is going to walk before crawling because she loves to stand so much.

Hannah also was successful in taking blocks out of the block box on multiple occasions.  She even can maneuver this box to get the blocks she wants.  Such a huge accomplishment!  Our wonderful neighbor gave Hannah this toy along with a dozen or so blocks, and it is her absolute favorite toy!  She loves these little blocks.

Needless to say, after so much therapy and work today, she was zonked out.  She did absolutely amazing today.  It was so awesome to see so much positivity today, so many steps forward.

Like I said, today was a good day.