Saturday, November 28, 2009

Drs, specialist, therapists, O My!!

Cohen has had a battery of tests run and continues to see one dr after another. We did get the official MRI report that showed that the development of the structure of the brain was completely normal!!! It was an answered prayer!
She was evaluated officially by First Steps at the end of Oct-- she is on a verbal level of a 3month old and on the physical level of an 8-10month old. She qualified for 1x/wk Special Instruction and 2x/month Speech Therapy for oral motor to assist with controling her tongue. Like I said that was October and here it is Dec on Tuesday and we haven't begun her therapy yet---this has been very FRUSTRATING to say the least.
We saw a Neurologist at Batson on Wednesday and she was TERRIFIC!!! We can not express how truly blessed we are to have found such great drs so close! She spent a ton of time with us and sat down on the floor in the room and played and loved on Cohen, we could really tell that she cared about her and ensuring she gets proper care. The other thing that I really liked about her, is that she did not "hide" her concern. She was very upfront with me on the reality of Cohen's prognosis-- which is still undetermined at this time. She scheduled us an EEG on Wednesday at Batson to study the brain activity and rule out seizure activity. We have never seen anything resembling a seizure go on in Cohen, but she said some can be so mild that they are not detected. Also, the MRI can not show the actual connections of fibers and firing going on so this will continue to help with the diagnosis. She did say that if everything turns out normal, then she says any damage done so far is very likely reversible. Babies brains are so plyable and still forming that through therapy and time, hopefully things will catch up. She was a HUGE advocate for therapy and was very disappointed to hear that it has taken us so long to start First Steps and gave us a few alternate routes to think about to get more services.
Cohen is just stealing our hearts daily as she smiles and grins at us! She is taking a few steps everyday-- she is dying to start running after her brother-- she eats us out of house and home, she is wearing 6 months clothes, we moved up to a size 3 diaper but they are HUGE on her, we think we are going to have to go back to a size 2 for daytime when she is moving and use the 3s at night, she loves her sleep 12+hrs a night!! She loves every man that comes near her (not sure what this will mean as she gets older)!!! She is truly a little fighter!!

Has it really been a month?!

I have never gone this long without updating the blog, but work and life have gotten the best of me!
Here are a few latest updates:

  • We celebrated Cohen's first birthday (pics to follow)! She never got to have her party because she ended up with strep throat the weekend it was planned....the story of her life :(
  • They celebrated Halloween. Kinson still didnt quite get it--he kept telling people "thats enough" when they were giving him candy! This was the weekend Cohen had strep so she didnt get to partake :(
  • Our favorite family from Virginia came to visit us! We miss them so much and usually only get to see them for a week during the summer, so we were so excited that they got to come down. We are planning for us to head up there in June for Stefani's graduation-- can't decide if we should drive or fly with the 2 kids???
  • Cohen has had multiple dr visits and I will do a separate post to update and get my prayer warriors ready!
  • Bear has been diligently studying, we couldnt be more proud of him! He has past the 2 hardest sections of the CPA test and took another part Nov 24. We will be anxiously awaiting his scores as he studies for the last part on Jan 12. He has continued to persevere through his fatigue and stress at work-- he has worked soooo hard for this!

I hope that the Holidays have brought many blessing and good times! I am hoping to get my pictures uploaded and added soon!