Advice not sought on therapy solutions...

I love that so many of my family members are so optimistic about Jace...but if I hear one more person tell me to try connective healing or a surgery, or something that they saw or read about because it helped another kid with CP walk, I may just scream...because that particular kid could already walk, damage was in a different part of the brain, there are several different types of cerebral palsy.

I don't think they realize that I spent the first three years looking into surgeries, treatments, asking questions about what I should be doing and researching until all hours of the night. Yes, it is great that the connective healer on Dr. Oz just now helped a child with CP to walk. However, that child could already walk, his walking improved. There are a ton of treatment programs out there that might work, but as his caregiver, I have had to pick and choose what benefits him most now, what does insurance pay for (all of this is costly) and what can he handle, he is only 6. I am not trying to "fix" him. Cerebral Palsy does not just vanish, but it does not become worse.

 I am sure connective healing has benefits and maybe one day, I will look into it further. I am much more interested in adding aquatic therapy and hippotherapy to his programs. He will probably progress out of his hart walker and into a pacer over the next two years, which is really an awesome goal! Without the therapy he has now, he would not even have the hart walker. There is really a reason for the programs that we do currently. I'd love to do it all, but he's still only 6, this is a lot as it stands and I am nervous about it being too much. Since he's not a mobile child though, aquatic therapy will be wonderful, would love that every other week and maybe hippotherapy every other week into the fall.

A rough start to the new year

Jace had a pretty rough start to this year, missing nearly an entire month of school due to bronchiolitis, he's finally returned to his normal schedule and resumed therapy tonight. Working on new goals for the next two years, we hope and see it as achievable to transition from the hart walker to a walker that will provide him with more freedom, maybe a pacer, we'll see how he does with weight bearing. In reflection over how important therapy is to a child such as Jace, I started to think of how far he has come in the last 3 years, thanks to intensive physical therapies. There have been endless benefits to receiving such therapy, including a gain in tolerance for his environment, a desire and urge to learn crawling, and in general, improvements in all areas where he previously struggled.

Ninety four percent of all children who undergo intensive physical therapy demonstrate an improvement in gross and fine motor skills. Sixty four percent of all children show an improvement of speech and fluency, but the major improvement occurs in the vestibular system. The vestibular system, through the position of the body, records and analyzes the muscle tone necessary to execute movement.

It is sad to learn tonight of those insurance companies who do not think that these therapies make any sort of difference. Hope to someday change that!