If....

If there was a therapy of the week club, we would be sure to join it. Did I mention that this post might be all over the place? We've just scheduled Noodles for his first HBOT session. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a pressurized chamber where LJ will sit while pure oxgygen is administered.

All our research concludes that there may be significant upside, even though that's based on anecdotal evidence (it's also hard to trust people when there are so many people scheming against parents who are just looking to heal their child). The downside, even according to skeptics, seems to be that we may be flushing our time and money. No different than the downside of any other therapy, when you get down to it. Since the cost and time commitment are not (terribly) prohibitive, the anecdotal evidence is compelling and the consensus seems to be that we will at least do no harm, we've decided to go for it. Perhaps in the near future there will be proof that it works.

The chamber looks like this except I'll be able to hold Lewis during the treatments and have to drive him back and forth to Rockville for 40 sessions. We are beginning on January 12th.......

I know that we can't waste time thinking about the future. But I feel so much better knowing that we are doing everything we can to give Lew a better life. If this works it might mean he doesn't need a wheelchair. Or it might mean that he won't have speech problems. Or it might mean that he won't ever need eye surgery again. We're not overly optimistic but we feel it can't hurt to try what's out there. We'll post again with pictures and updates when we've started. As you can imagine we are very anxious and nervous but at the the same time we're pretty excited about the what-ifs.

We've also hired on a musical therapist who will help us reinforce the speech therapy goals through melody and the occupational fine motor goals through the use of instruments. I can't carry a tune, and though it's nice that our friend Bubbe offered to skype with us and sing showtunes (her favorite not mine), we thought we would try a licensed music therapist. It will hopefully be a lot of fun and not seem like therapy to him. His determination and courage amazes me, but some of this therapy has got to be fun. Music therapy has even been shown to reduce pain- so at the very least we can help LJ get through retching through the use of music. Who knows, Nate might be joining in the jam session with us once we get familiar with everything. You can check out musictherapy.org for more information.

And Lewis has still been trying to flip and roll from his back to stomach alot. He's also trying to walk with assistance. So we "test-drove" a gait trainer and we are trying to work the system again so that he can get one through early intervention. It will help him learn to distribute his weight more effectively so he can start exploring things and gaining independence. Here's the ferrari version our therapist hopes we get because it has more of a cause-effect relationship with weight suspension. Up and Go Gait Trainer There is also a possibility of getting a hand-me-down version of this one depending on what the PT thinks...and obviously this would be the most feasible version http://www.adaptivemall.com/ponysize0.html Its nice to think about the little boy who used to need this- he no longer needs it as able to walk independently. I dream about those days.

What therapy is next? Anat Baniel Therapy also known as ABT? One never knows!