March 21, 2006
March 21, 2006 | Updates
Sorry for the late update. The last few days when I’ve gotten on the carepages to update, they have been down for maintenance. But this week has been a good one. Samuel is doing really well in the car each day. I think he has cried once or twice on all our trips to Salt Lake and back. That has been a miracle in and of itself. He normally just watches out the window or naps most of the way there and back everyday. If he does get upset, I can usually just talk to him and he settles down. I sure hope it lasts!The first 3 days of last week, Samuel screamed through each hyperbaric treatment. It was interesting because he would calm right down the moment we pulled him out. (But that’s a long hour & 20 minutes listening to him cry!) I was really worried he would get himself in bad situations in the chamber, and he almost did one day. He nearly turned himself clear around again and almost got his head pushed into a pillow. Luckily, we were bringing him up from the pressure at the time and were just a few minutes from taking him out of the chamber anyway. But it certainly made me nervous.
The last 2 days of last week, however, were completely different. Samuel just sat in the chamber and watched a movie both those days. He has literally NEVER done that before in the nearly 50 treatments we had done. He wasn’t sleepy or anything. He was just content to lay and enjoy the movie. It was such a drastic change, but a very nice one!
So since Samuel has been moving around in the chamber so much, my grandma has volunteered to start sitting in the chamber with him at least Monday thru Thursday for now. It has gone well the first 2 days, so that will be nice.
Samuel is also sleeping much better at night. He does wake up several times a night, but he normally goes back to sleep without any help. It makes for him being in a much better mood if he’s had enough sleep at night. So the past week and a half has been very nice. Some days, he’s been so very smiley that nearly anything makes him smile. But nearly everyday, we can get at least a smile or two no matter what. It’s very nice. He has even been smiling at his therapists and one noticed that Samuel likes to tease people. We knew that already since it makes him smile the most, but it was fun to see someone else notice it.
I’ve had all of Samuel’s therapists and several people at hyperbarics comment to me this week on what a huge difference they have seen in Samuel. Even Tom said this week that Samuel has changed so much in the past few weeks that it is amazing. Samuel has just been calm, happy and very aware. They are all changes we hope to see continue to increase. He is moving his arms more and more, he is getting some control over his neck and is now working on his trunk muscles. It also seems that he is bending his left leg more and more and he already bends his right leg all day long. The arch in his back seems very diminished and he used to curve his back so that his left side was tighter than his right. The past week, he seems to be curving it the other way. We are just excited to see things loosening up.
We’re still working on getting him eating and are afraid that is going to be quite the undertaking since Samuel just doesn’t like things in his mouth. But he doesn’t drool anymore, so we know he’s swallowing.
This week will be just a basic week of hyperbarics & therapy. We have several doctors appointments next week. But this week will be fairly slow (as slow as driving to Salt Lake everyday can be :)).
Keep praying! We’re so grateful to everyone for their faith in Samuel. We are so very blessed to have him in our lives. He is such a cute and sweet little boy!
Love,
The Jewkes
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