Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Ups and Downs

I knew this would happen. The past few weeks Leah has been a rockstar, she has done so many amazing things. I'm one proud Mama! BUT, whenever she has a few REALLY good weeks and I'm feeling so UP about her progress comes the DOWN part. That's now. I hate the down part, the part where I get sad, the why my baby part.

This is my down right now, Leah is pulling up on everything! I walk into her room after every nap and in the mornings when she wakes up and there she is standing. It's great to see her there, but then I've been really watching her and she is entirely using her right side. Lefty is nowhere to be seen when pulling up. I know that she doesn't have the strengh in that arm, but I would like to see her using it a little bit more.
Then yesterday we went to a picnic with all of our friends who have children 2 and under. I was watching one of the little girls and she was eating corn on the cob, one hand on each side perfectly supanted. Yes, this made me sad. Leah has a hard time with supanation and at that moment I just couldn't imagine her eating the corn the way that little girl was. I know Leah will find a way to eat the corn, but it was just that moment that my heart hurt a little. After the corn incident, my friend (who knows about Leah's hemi) was holding her and was asking for high fives, Leah happily obliged with righty, my friend said "can you do it with your left" in which Leah did nothing. I feel like the complete non-use of lefty is becoming more apparent. I know she can use lefty--she just chooses not too, it's just too much work right now.

I love the ups but hate knowing there is going to be down soon after.

7 comments:

Kiera said...

Big hugs Amanda! Leah is doing great and she is beautiful! There will be these hard days, but hopefully the good ones outweigh the bad ones.

If I recall you are still thinking about constraint, right? The awareness of his right side was a big thing that Reichen got out of that. He may not use it as often as his left, but it is much more natural now than prior. Hopefully you will see the same thing...

Amanda said...

Keira--
Thanks! We are planning CIMT for October! I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I think it will do wonders for Leah's awareness of lefty...at least that is my hope!! I would just like to see her a little more active with it...she just could care less that it's even there! She is becoming SO efficent with righty that she has almost no need for lefty.
I'd love to hear any advice you have about CIMT. Did you guys have a permanant cast or did you bi-valve it? I feel like I was just reading Reichen's blog about it, but I can't remember now! Thanks again for the compliments. :)

Popcorn House said...

Amanda if you go back and read my blog you will see how many of the ups and downs I have had too. I compared it to a roller coaster. I still do, so many days I feel happy.....but then there are the downs too.

I know how hard it is to see that Leah isn't incorporating lefty in her new skills. But look back at what she was doing when you started this journey and probably a lot of those earlier skills she is using lefty to assist in. For example when we started therapy at 9 months, Sammy was only holding his sippy cup with one hand, now he uses two. So if you can take a step back and see where she was maybe that will help. Also, even if I look at my "normal" kids there was over flow movements when they started a new task. For example, now that she is pulling up you may see that lefty is more fisted. It is a new skill so she really has to concentrate on doing it. As she gets more used to doing it, she will be come more graceful.

Hugs, I am thinking of you. It is so nice to have our "support" group!

Popcorn House said...

One more quick thing. I have noticed that Sammy's tone increases if he has gone through a growth spurt, if he is teething, if he is sick. So she may be going through that and you are just seeing the results of that. Right now, I am noticing a big increase in Sammy's supinating tone as well. I always freak out about it at first, then later I step back and I can see the cause of it and I feel better about it. I know you already are stretching and massaging, but when I notice this happening with Sammy I TRY to increase our stretching times as well.

I think I told you this before, but just by her four point crawling, that will strengthen lefty so much. I can't even tell you what it has done for Sammy. So many hemi kids skip four point crawling and go straight to walking. Just that is so positive, combine that with CIMT she will be doing fabulous.

Amanda said...

Thanks Suzanne! I too LOVE our "support" group! I'd be lost without you ladies!!

Great point about the teething etc, Leah is DEFINITLEY teething right now! I'm going to try to increase our streching and such to see if that helps a bit. I attribute every other thing to teething, i.e. the way she eats, how she sleeps, but I never thought about how it could effect her use of lefty. It makes a lot of sense!!

Anonymous said...

Amanda, Leah is doing great, I know it is hard to see other kids useing both hands so effortlessly, and it is hard to watch our little ones struggle to do things that they need both hands for. Addie is useing leftly much more now, but she has figured out how to do some things w/out lefty, and is slowly finding out how to use lefty too, to make it easier. I promise it will come, When Addie started to pullup she only used her right and now she uses both hand equally to pull up, so it WILL come! Hang in there!! Hugs!

Amanda said...

Thanks Kara!!!