OT Struggles

Lately OT has been quite a struggle for Leah. She is really at a standstill as far as what she is doing with her effected hand. We still have NO active grasp and we are fast approaching two years old. My biggest fear from day one was that Leah would never have a grasp and everyday that goes by that fear gets stronger.

This past weekend I ran into a lady I know, who happens to be a well known OT in my community, and we got to talking about Leah. I asked her if she had any magic tricks to get Leah using "lefty" more and she basically went off about all these different things she would be doing. She went on to tell me that hemiplegia/hemiparesis is her favorite diagnosis and that when she was in school she wrote her final paper on hemi. She said she would love to start seeing Leah since she doesn't often get to see kids with her diagnosis.

Sounds great, right? Right!

Except, I LOVE Leah's OT. She has been seeing Leah every week, twice a week since Leah was 4 months old. She was the one who was there when we got the diagnosis and she was the one who always told me it was going to be ok. I hate thinking that we might not be with her, because she has really done so much with Leah. But, I think as this point we need to do something different because OT is just not working lately. Lisa (Leah's OT) is so wonderful, but we are at such a standstill that today she said she thinks we should cut down OT to once a week. I know that through life Leah is going to have times where she does great and she is going to have times where she doesn't do much, the latter is now.

I'm excited at the idea of getting a new pair of eyes and hands on Leah. I think that it will be good, but at the end of the day I can't help but feel like I've questioned Lisa's ability as an OT. I really do think she is fantastic at what she does, but I need to do what is best for Leah. I think both Lisa and I have gotten so close to Leah, that we need to remove ourselves a bit. Kind of like watching a kid grow, you don't realize really how much they've grown until you don't see them as often. So, maybe we'll use these next couple months (to a year) for Lisa and Leah to take a step back. We can only see this OT for the next year anyways, because she only takes EI, which Leah ages out of in a year, where as Lisa's clinic takes our insurance. In the end, we will still see Lisa every week, just once a week and then we will see the new OT once a week. I just hope everyone can work together for Leah, because in the end she's number one!