Matt’s still at Sharpe and doing well.  The past couple of weeks Matt has been picking up a spoon, scooping up water and putting it in his mouth to swallow.  He’s also been brushing his hair daily although we do spray it with water for him first.  We’re working with Matt to get him to hold his electric razor and move it all across his face as well as handling his toothbrush on his own.  He can hold both but it’s the coordinated movement that he needs to get figured out.  These are simple tasks to all of us but for him now, it is a challange.  He’ll get it, we just have to be patient and let him try everyday.  His ability to hold up his head standing and sitting has come a long ways this month.  Standing he hold his head up on his own with very little adjustment for 25 - 55 minutes.  Seated in his chair he’s doing the same for 10 - 20 minutes.  Also we are getting him to start sitting on his own hands off with his head up.  That still needs more work but he’s getting it.  Today at Sharpe he wrote M A T T for the first time.  Lee, the therapist will write his name first, then Matt will write it next to what she wrote out.  Lee also had Matt wipe the whiteboard off after they were done and of coarse, he did that.   Sharpe speech will start February 2nd and Matt just had SDSU’s appointment set up for later in February to do a speech evaluation for their graduate program.  The timing for that could work out nicely.  We’re hoping it will either coincide and continue after the Sharpe speech ends which could get Matt 2 or 3 months of speech therapy which would be awesome.  We also have a referral to get Matt’s nose looked at.  We, along with some of the therapist have been watching Matt swallow and think he is having problems breathing through his nose as he swallows due to the injury to his nose which looks like a deviated septum.  Having read what information online that I can gather, sounds like Matt has all the symtoms  that go along with that type of condition.  Lots to do and we’re continuing to “get ur done”.  Spencer should be back from China this week so it will be cool to for him to see how far Matt has progressed in just 4 weeks that he’s been gone and to see where Spencer takes it from here.  It’s all good.

Well, tonight Matt just blew us all away!  With a Sharpie and a note pad he wrote:  M A T T  ,  L I N D S E Y  ,  M O M  ,  D A D , then B R I T .  Matt did it pretty quickly to, one letter after the next.  It was almost 9:00 pm, I didn’t think he would have it in him that late, but he did!  He picked up the pen for each letter so it was real clear to see.  We saved it all to show the o/t therapist.

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Matt began therapy at Sharpe Rehab January 5th.  It’s been going pretty good.  Yesterday Lisa and Joan to Matt in for p/t & o/t.  The physical therapist Matt had was a different one than he has had in the past and she was really into Matt.  She had him on a bike pedaling for 16 minutes on his own.  Matt would slow down a bit and they tell him to speed up and Lisa said he just went for it!  By the time he was done he had worked up a sweat.  Matt was also approved Monday by Kaiser withabout an hour of wrangling with the Kaiser speech therapist who finally admitted she was out of her “field of expertise”.  I recieved a phone call from Kaiser that Matt was refered back to Sharpe for 8 weeks of speech therapy.  We were contacted the next day by Sharpe and Matt will have Lance who we had met with one time and were really impressed by his approach and recommendations.  That will all start on Monday the 12th of January.  Matt is also being seen by an associatetherapist this month while Spencer is in China with his mentor Waleed teaching their physical therapy technique.  Lisa was working with Matt at home today with playing cards, domino’s and other things and started messing with Matt’s hat putting it on herself.  She asked Matt if he would put it on himself, he reached out and took the hat from her and put it on his own head.  It was so cool.  That’s it for now, will keep you posted.

Cheers

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Matt is continuing to surprise us.  We’ve started putting together cognitive games that Matt is really starting to get going.  We have to keep mixing it up because after a while Matt gets bored with the same old thing.  We ask him if we wants to continue and he says yes so we keep going on.  Today Lisa and I had Matt up in the Standing Frame for over an hour and Matt had complete head control.  We usually see him stand supporting his head for 10 to 20 minutes at a time but today it was well over an hour!  While standing and over the past week Matt’s eye alignment has really improved as well.  I kind of think when he went in to the eye doctor on December 26 he realized what he was missing visually to his right and I also think he’s hearing us talk about it as well as every time we explain it to someone visiting he’s hearing us and working on correcting himself all on his own.  We haven’t even gotten his glasses yet but it’s like he is figuring it out with the therapy.  While he was standing tonight he was turning his head to the right and looking at pictures, the fireplace while he was up straight and holding his head up on his own.  Maybe it’s the eye control that’s helping with the head control, don’t know but whatever it is, we’ll take it!

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