30 April 2012

T & A

Liam makes a weird noise half the time that sounds likes he is trying to inhale air through a straw. Except he uses his nose. It's pretty loud. So loud I won't take him to church on Wednesday nights anymore. He has been doing it since last November when he got his cold. I have assumed it was just a new trick he does. Like with his tongue. He used to stick his tongue out and bite it. Now he shoves it in his cheek. I figured he picked up this new breathing noise when he was sick and just stuck with it.

A few weeks ago my mom and Liam's OT both mentioned that Liam had big tonsils within a few days of each other. So I took him to Dr. Kid who said she was 95% sure they needed to be removed and sent me to ENT.

ENT said that the tonsils were large-ish. On a scale of 1-4 Liam is a 2.5. But he felt Liam's issues were from his adenoids.  He felt they must be pretty large and are interfering with Liam's breathing. He asked if he snored. Check. Did he wake up at night. Check. Well then adenoids need to go.  But not the tonsils.  I got the impression that he didn't want to do the tonsillectomy on Liam because he's 'special'. I felt like he didn't want to put Liam through it since he's disabled...like Liam couldn't handle it.

I went home happy that the tonsils didn't need to be removed and then after I got to talking to some of his therapists (who feel like the tonsils need to go) I called back with some questions. When I talked to the nurse she reiterated what I felt....that the Dr didn't want to put Liam through that surgery because of his special needs. And that he felt a lot of Liam's issues will be resolved with the removal of the adenoids.

We shall see.
 It will be pointless if he has to have surgery twice when it could have all been done at once.

The surgery is scheduled for Wednesday. It's supposedly 30 minutes minus sedation and intubation.

I know we are lucky and this is minor but this will be Liam's fourth surgery. I wish there was no intubation. That word sends fear and pangs of anxiety through the heart of any micropreemie mom. But I'll be glad to get those suckers out of there.

I should ask if I can have them.

Put them in his baby book.


Just kidding.

Kinda.




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23 April 2012

New stem cells found

          Here's more exciting news about stem cells. You can read the article here.        
          It says that progenitor cells discovered in the brain’s small blood vessels have the capacity to differentiate into neurons and other tissue types....including neuronal cells!





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19 April 2012

News to Note.

I think I'm quirky. At least my family says it's so.

Liam's pretty quirky too.

Take for instance the fact that he absolutely can not stand to have a pillow he is laying on get on the top of his head.

Yeah.  I don't know how he does it but he can flip a pillow out from under his head and then it will be resting at the top of his head, or on the edge of his forehead and he will freak. Absolutely flips out. He can wear a hat. But woe to the person who lets a pillow approach his sweet little head.

He's also got one leg longer than the other. It's at least half an inch longer. Apparently we can fix this somewhat by having him stand in his stander for 3 hours a day, bearing weight on the shorter leg. I don't know how that's going to ever happen. It sounds brilliant in theory. We do get two hours in. Hopefully that can be enough for now.

And Liam now has scoliosis.

He's only four!

FOUR!

I noticed it recently and thought I was seeing a genuine S curve in his spine.

Hoping that wasn't what I was seeing.

I had his PT check it out and as I was afraid of...I was right. 

She said it looked like the pull was coming from his obliques which is good because it means he's stronger and using them on his left side. But that means that the spine is being pulled in one direction down low and to compensate the upper spine is pulled in the other.

I knew scoliosis was coming for him. I knew that was a fact for his future because of his severely low muscle tone in his trunk.

But I never thought he'd have it already at 4.




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09 April 2012

Easter 2012

Our Easter family photo, taken as we were rushing out the door to get to church on time.

Yeah, I didn't plan that out too well.


Some kids were already in the car and I called them in to take the picture. It's not often we all are dressed nice at the same time. Too bad it looks so haphazard.

Shawn is missing because he was here.

He was investigating this and making sure it was disarmed:

Pilot's ejection seat in someone's back yard.
Last year Shawn ended up in the ER getting stitches so this was another memorable Easter for us.

This was Liam's 5th Easter celebration.

He thought it was uber hilarious when he spanked Ian while we were dying the eggs.

I'd ask him if Ian was naughty and he'd grin. Then I'd ask if Ian needed a spanking and he'd give me that huge joker grin. Then he'd help me spank Ian's arms.

I don't know why he thinks violence is so funny.



Liam's first Easter he had only been home for a few weeks from the NICU. He only weighed 5 lbs so he fit inside his basket. 




He doesn't look much bigger to me this year. Arms are still up and legs are still too skinny. Although he did bring his arms to his basket.

He wanted that basket so bad. He loved to touch and grab the grass and see what was inside.



Liam got the best chocolate out of everyone.


His was the new Philadelphia Indulgence. Milk and Dark. I'm going to have to convince him to share with me.



Swinging with the Mimi.
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05 April 2012

A hundred.

Liam had speech therapy Thursday along with his itinerant preschool teacher. I usually leave the room when they are here so I'm not a distraction to them or Liam and I can always use the time to get something done.

When time was up and I went in there, his speech teacher told me that Liam had gotten 100% of the questions right!  I was so happy for him. I knew all along he was 'in' there, just getting him out is what's so hard!

She was so happy and impressed with him that she even called me the next day to tell me again how well he had done and how pleased she was with him. =D  Love that!

It's so hard for him to reach goals and to see him ever get 100% is something I didn't think would happen because his arm control is just so bad. He can try to hit the right button or picture but hits the wrong one instead.
   
     Imagine you want to pick up the red marker but when you finally get the coordination to get your arm over to the markers, your aim is off and you land on the blue one instead?  Yeah, that's how it is for Liam.

So proud of my boy!



And....

Random fact:

       This is my 500th post! :-o

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