April 3, 2006
April 3, 2006 | Updates
Well, we are half way through with our 40 treatments of hyperbarics. Samuel slept well all week - even the night after his MRI when he took a 6 hour nap during the day. He has been very happy and smiling every day. Most of the time, he is pretty calm. He has even started smiling at some of his therapists as they work with him. It’s nice to see his happy personality coming back since before his accident, he was one of the happiest and easy going little kids I’ve ever known. I told Tom that on good days, I spend 24 hours a day with a happy little guy that I am always trying to make smile. I can’t help but be in a good mood with a kid like that. He does still, of course, get upset at times and when he does, it is hard for him to calm down. Just today, he was more agitated than usual and by tonight, he screamed for an hour or so. But then he calmed down again and was settled for the rest of the evening. It just depends on the moment, I guess :).This week, we have mostly seen improvements in Samuel’s cognition. Last night, Ben was sitting clear on the other side of our L-shaped sectional and suddenly started giggling. I looked over to see that he was crossing his eyes at Samuel. And when I looked down at Samuel, he had a HUGE grin on his face. Ben kept making Samuel smile until Ben’s poor little eyes hurt and we had to tell him to stop. It was cute. (Stupid eye doctor - from 10 feet away, Samuel found Ben’s crossed eyes funny! He’s OBVIOUSLY not legally blind!)
We have come up with a lot of games that we can play with Samuel. We will have him push our noses and we will say “beep”. Or we will pretend we are looking for Samuel or one of the other boys even though Samuel can clearly see where they are. Then we’ll act startled when we finally find them. He thinks those are both funny. And the other night, Tom took Samuel and pretended that they were hiding from me. As I would peek over Tom’s shoulders to try and see Samuel in his arms, Samuel would catch a quick glimpse of me and knew I was trying to get him. He loved it!
One of Samuel’s therapists brought him a switch which is basically just a big button that does something when you push it. We actually have several. Some work toys and others replay recordings. But this particular one is very easy to record different sayings on and is easy for Samuel to push. So we will record things into it like, “Hi, mom” or “Ready, set, go” or “Turn the page.” Then we will get Samuel to push it. If it says “Hi, mom” then I will reply with “What, Baby?” If it says “Ready, set, go” then the kids will take off running down the hall. And if it says “Turn the page” then we will turn the page on the book we’re reading. He absolutely LOVES it! I would say it is his favorite things to play with.
Samuel has also discovered a few new movies this week - Toy Story and the Tigger movie. He seems enthraled with them for a week or so and then gets bored with them so we have to find new ones. I consider that a very good sign. He also still loves reading books and we are scanning some of his books into the computer so we can hook up a switch to the computer and he can push the switch to turn the pages on the book. He should enjoy that.
We are working on having a crawler made for Samuel and his stander that we ordered 3 1/2 months ago finally came. He doesn’t like it, but we will just have to work him into being in it a little bit each day.
Last of all, we finally got to spend some time outside yesterday. Samuel seemed to enjoy it. His favorite thing was when we put him on the tramp and lightly bounced with him. He smiled at that and at watching his brothers jump around him. He is just so aware and seems to remember so many of the things he loved before. It was fun to be out in the sun!
Thanks again to everyone. Keep up the prayers and the great faith!
Love,
The Jewkes
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