MichaelZullo.com

I was afraid that today’s PT session wouldn’t have gone so well because Mikey refused to take a nap before our session. He took a 10 minute power nap during the car ride, and that was after I had given him some tylenol because he was super fussy at home. When we got there he was like a new little man, wide awake and energized to work out!

Almost immediately his therapist saw that he had dramatically improved since last week. She worked with him like she normally does doing different activities and he would do all of it. He still could care less about going on all 4s. He did it maybe once during the visit but did not hold himself up for very long at all. She said that some babies don’t crawl at all and actually Gary never crawled when he was little so maybe Mikey is really Gary 2.0. She said that by 10 months if he’s not crawling she’ll stop working on that milestone and will be promoting standing up and walking. He has a lot of strength in his legs though, he would much rather stand up than try to crawl, but without the arm strength he won’t be able to hold himself up since he’s too small to go at it alone.

The last 10 minutes we spent fitting Mikey with his TOT Collar. He surprisingly did not try pulling it off. Once we had it on he left it alone. She said to aim for 2 hours at a time for now but if he’s staying mid-line like he has been the past few days then to not use it until the next time he starts tilting.

So I took Mikey to the pediatrician this morning because they wanted to see him in person before writing a prescription for a TOT collar. His doc was glad we went because she wanted to see him after she saw the latest report from his therapist. She has no problem prescribing a TOT collar if it might help. She is very surprised that he is still tilting given that we caught this relatively early. She recommended that we see a specialist in addition to the PT. And at this point it can’t hurt to get another opinion. We aren’t able to get in for an appointment until July 16th though. Guess he’s a busy buys guy! Stay tuned for further updates.

I knew therapy today wouldn’t be great because he’s been tilting worse and worse each day. It’s beyond disappointing to go into an appointment knowing that the therapist is just going to be disappointed. And of course she was. She did all kind of stretches with him and tried to get him to lift his head but he’d do it for a few seconds or he’d start fussing because he didn’t want to do it.

When we first started therapy she mentioned something called the TOT collar and hasn’t mentioned it since because he’s been doing sooooooo well. After seeing him today she mentioned it again. We talked to her supervisor after our session and she showed us the TOT collar. It’s an interesting contraption. Insurance more than likely won’t cover it. He’d need to wear it all day long except for when he’s sleeping. So of course that would mean I’d have to train daycare how to put it on the right way. I’d also need to make sure that they supervise him really well since its around his neck the last thing we’d want is another kid to come and pull on it and choke Mikey. It’s unsure if a prescription is required or not so I’m going to be looking into it. Some mom’s have been able to get it online for cheap so I need to look into that option as well. I’d hate for my little man to be the “freak” of the class with some contraption on him but if that’ll help him then I need to do what’s best for him.