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Today was Mikey’s last official Physical Therapy session. It was a nice quick session and half an hour later it was over. So a little over a year after starting PT its all over. A little bitter sweet but I’m so very glad its over.

I took Mikey to his specialist appointment this morning since he wanted to see him at 18 months (and that’ll be on Friday). I was afraid that somehow the doc would see Mikey tilting and he’d suggest something as drastic as botox or even surgery because I did catch Mikey tilting while in the stroller in the waiting room. But he had him walk on his own down the hall mainly to look at his shoulders while he walked to make sure he wasn’t lifting one of his shoulders to help his neck stay straight, but his shoulders were fine. What a relief!!!! The doc said he looks GREAT and he asked me how often we go to PT so I told him. He wants us to cut down to once a month for 2 months and then stop all together but continue stretches at home until he’s 2. Of course if he starts tilting again he wants us to come back but I don’t see that happening.

Yay for finally an end in sight!!!

I got so caught up with posting about the new cool gallery that I forgot to post about Mikey’s latest PT appointment. We went on Wednesday afternoon, it has been about 3 weeks since our last visit. Nothing really new or exciting to report. He showed his therapist that he knows how to run so she was happy to see that. She took him outside so he could practice walking over things. She had him walking over tree roots and he did really well with that. She did some stretches for as long as he’d tolerate. We don’t have another appointment with her until May because she’s going on vacation next week. Next week we also see the specialist so she told me to call her after our appointment so that she knows what he wants to do. We are both hoping that he’ll release us from therapy so that she can formally discharge us. I really hope that is the outcome because honestly PT is a waste of our time. Yes he tilts but he goes both way, and as his therapist said on Wednesday, he’s just using his neck the way he’s supposed to.

We had yet another PT appointment this past Wednesday. Mikey was doing great. No tilt at all. I had told the therapist how he ended up with croup the day after our last visit so that’s why he was tilting for both her and the specialist. She once again told me that she is ready to discharge Mikey but wants to wait until our next specialist visit. She told me ultimately its OUR call. Of course it is! )

That next visit is mid-April so hopefully he won’t be tilting at all by then. And even if he is I think I’m going to tell the doctor that we are done. Because we are the ones that see Mikey the most and the majority of the time he isn’t tilting. If he’s still tilting at 2 then we’ll talk again, but for now we need a break!!!

Things have been hectic over here the past few weeks so I haven’t had much of a chance to come update Mikey’s blog. I’m finalizing our little mini-vacation to Disney, we leave this Friday. And now I’m planning our trip to Washington D.C. so that Gary can get some much needed medical tests done at NIH.

As for Mikey he’s doing ok. He got all 4 of his canine’s at once so its been a lot of FUN! He is also having some major temper tantrums, especially in the car on our hour drive home from work. I finally resorted to buying us a portable dvd player and that thing has been a life-saver!!!!

This morning we had our follow-up appointment with his specialist for the torticollis. Of course of ALL days he chooses TODAY to tilt to his left. He hasn’t tilted to his left in MONTHS!!!!! And today he chooses to do it! The doctor felt his neck and had him walk up and down the hall. He has a slight tilt, I can’t deny it. The doc said that its still pretty mild and he would not recommend botox right now. He wants to wait until Mikey is 18 months old before we even revisit that. He said continue with PT, stretches at home, and attempt to use the TOT collar.

I was so ready to end this long journey but it just seems like it keeps going on and on and on. We have PT this afternoon and I’m going to talk to the therapist about what the doc said. She is actually ready to release Mikey from PT so I’m curious to see what she says about all of this.

PT went REALLY REALLY REALLY well last night. Mikey walked a ton. She practiced standing up on his own instead of having to use an object. She even got him to play squating for awhile. That has been tough for him to do and he eventually started doing it on his own. Funny thing when we were in the waiting room in walks his pediatrician! She immediately recognized us and once again pointed out how GREAT he looks. He is looking great. If there is a tilt it is soooooo minimal. Ok back to PT, the great news is that our therapist is soooooo happy with Mikey’s progress that she wants recommends that we move to every other week unless I see him tilting of course then she wants me to bring him in. She wants us to do this until we go back to the specialist the first week of March, hopefully then he’ll bring an end to this long journey.

I was able to take 1 picture at therapy yesterday. He was standing up next to the mirror and taking off the little fish clings that were stuck to the mirror and then he’d try putting it back on himself. He knew that if you held it and pressed on it then it should stick, what he didn’t realize that you had to get the right side of the fish facing the mirror or else it wouldn’t stick.

PT went really well today. Didn’t expect it to go bad or anything. She wanted to work on steps and even kicking a ball with him. He took plenty of steps which made her happy. He’s now at the point where you don’t really need to push him to walk you can just put him standing somewhere and he’ll go or he’ll go from object to object himself. He still can’t stand up on his own from the floor but we are practicing that now. And he’s not able to squat and play like that just yet. No pictures to share today, all the ones I took are way too blurry.

Ok so this post is a week late but I’ll pretend that I had published it a week ago ;o)

PT went REALLY REALLY well. I was very excited to go because I wanted his therapist to finally see Mikey walking all on his very own. Oh yeah did I say he’s walking???  Yup this past Sunday Mikey decided to take well more than 3-4 steps in a row. He’s walking all over the house. He’s still not quite that stable but he’s doing really really well and get’s excited with what he’s doing which is cute.

She did stretches with him. Suprisingly he’s very cooperative unlike most 15 month old’s out there. And of course the grande finale, taking steps on his own. It was great and she was so happy.

Our next step is to try to get him to stand up on his own and to have him walk with more confidence. Here are a couple of pics from today’s session:

Here is a pic of him walking on his own, sorry that its blurry, he was on the move so this was the best I could do:

We had a pretty good PT session yesterday. I updated our therapist with what the specialist had told us the other day. She wasn’t too surprised but was also glad that hopefully an end is in sight. With toddlers you have to really get creative when doing stretches. Sometimes its having them do things like pulling themselves up but getting them to look around to get them to stretch because at this age they don’t tolerate much. Well she recently bought this headband thing that has these pom-pom like things as antennae which was actually pretty cute. But it was distracting enough that it allowed her to stretch Mikey with absolutely NO fight!

Here’s proof….

What’s funny is after she put the headband on his head once, he took it off of course but then tried putting it back himself. He did some more walking, took a few unassisted steps for her but not too many. She said IT’S coming…..meaning walking. Guess we’ll see soon enough!

This morning I took Mikey to his specialist visit. We were his 1st appointment so I thought we’d be in and out pretty quick especially since the doc arrived just 2 minutes after we got there. That’s a good sign, because he’s NOT late. So it took about 15 minutes to get called back then once in the room it took seriously another 25 minutes until the doc came in. Ummmmm let’s just say it was rough keeping Mikey entertained that long. He started getting really fussy because he wanted out. When the doc came in he freaked when he touched his neck, mainly because by then he was getting really fussy because he was tired. The doc looked him over and does notice he has a slight left tilt. He also noticed that he is tilting more to the right which is actually good because its stretching the left. At this point he is not recommending Botox for Mikey. He is satisfied that he is improving so he wants us to continue with the TOT collar for 2 more months along with going to PT once a week until then. The reason why he wanted to wait 2 more months is because Mikey is still not walking on his own and is tilting to his right when he tries to walk. So he wants to see him walking on his own to see how he holds up his head and within 2 months he should be doing that. I hope its a lot sooner of course!

When we go back in 2 months if he’s worse then more than likely he’ll suggest botox. If its the same or better than more than likely he’ll recommend stopping the TOT collar completely and then weaning him from his PT sessions. Yay! I can’t wait. How funny that our next appointment is 2 days before our next trip to Disney too. It’s almost as if we will be celebrating a little more than daddy’s birthday. I sure hope so!