Ding, Dong the Shots are Gone!

The best news that came out of Wednesday's appointments was Alistair's blood clot is gone and therefore he doesn't need to continue his twice a day shots! Yay for everyone! Now his poor banana-bruise legs can HEAL! We had an ice cream cake appropriately decorated to celebrate the occasion!

Alistair had a great visit and check-up. All his doctors and various therapists couldn't say enough great things about how he is doing and how great he looks since they saw him last. The physical therapist said he has little to no tone left in his legs, has improved strength and range and seems to be moving quite well! The occupational therapist also was pleased with his range and movement changes since he left but also recognizes that his fine motor skills are slow to return. Although he is able to move his right arm and can reach and bend and stretch, he is still experiencing significant tone throughout his arm which makes it slower and creates tension in working the fine motor movements. She gave us some ideas as to how to work with him at home in addition to his outpatient appointments.

Wednesday was a check-up day for all the kids who discharged around the same time. Alistair was over the moon to see Daniel when we came out of our PT appointment. He ran over and hugged him. From talking to his mom, they had plans to meet up with Monte and his family for lunch at U Village and invited us to tag along. So we did and the dudes were reunited! They have all come a long way. It was fun to see them together! 

Dr. Apkon was very happy to see Alistair and was extremely pleased with the progress he has made. She has suggested we see a neurologist who specializes in movement disorders to see if she has any thoughts on Alistair's face and the tone he continues to experience in his lower jaw. If it wasn't for the tightness through his jaw, he most likely wouldn't require speech therapy! Neurology has different medications he might be able to try to combat this. 

It was a very long day at Children's, but it was fun to see everyone! We went and visited the unit and saw many of the nurses we had. We saw Betsy, Alistair's OT inpatient, and Alistair invited himself (and us) to have dinner at her house sometime! She lives on a house boat and has a golden named Lily (who is a therapy dog at SCH, visited Alistair many times!). She said they would love to have us! :) It was a very surreal feeling to be there and around everyone. It was like a college reunion. You see all these people you saw every day, sometimes at the 3 in the morning, sometimes before you were out of your pajamas and eating breakfast, or throughout the day between appointments, and now are catching up on what has been going on since you left. 

But at the end of the day...we got to drive HOME! :)

Quickie!

I see my link for the blog on my toolbar on my screen and I think, "I really need to do an update!" And then something else comes up and it doesn't happen. This update will be super short. Today we had a meeting to go over the evaluations school did with Alistair in order to move forward with setting up an IEP (Invidualized Education Plan). Nothing was a surprise to us in the needs portion of the evaluation...he definitialy needs his Para-Educator to help him in class and around school with actions using his hands and arms. He needs speech, occupational and physical therapies at school and will qualify for them. The thing that was more suprising, but pleasantly so, was that socially, emotionally, mentally and cognitively he is soaring! The psychologist met with him a few times and said he is aware of his limitations and is not afraid to advocate for himself, he has a very positive outlook on things and seems to be happy! His academics have not been affected; he participates in group learning in class, he is understanding new concepts and retaining information in math and has great reading comprehension and retention. So, so glad to hear! 

Tomorrow Alistair has his BIG check-up appointment with Rehab at Children's. We will be there ALL day and he will see all the therapists, Dr. Apkon and the psychologist. It will be interesting getting their perspective on things since they haven't seen him at all in 7 1/2 weeks! I will make sure to give a full report in the next few days on all that was discussed!

School Jog-A-Thon - Alistair did 5 or 6 laps and even did some jogging!

Snow White and the Zombie - Alistair wasn't going to dress up this year and stayed home to hand our candy with Seth. At the last minute, he decided to answer the door as a zombie and got a shirt that unbuttoned! People thought it was cool, some were a little surpirsed his scar was real!