A New Child...

I don't know where to start... Our Logan has made soooo much progress in these last few weeks. We have been following the corn-free diet for him for over a month now. His behavior is night and day from what it was about 2 months ago. He was aggressive, never satisfied, always spinning, bouncing, hurting himself, and had violent outbursts towards anyone that upset him. He would not let you touch him, let alone cuddle him! Now...he is a calm and sweet boy. He is open to redirection, doesn't throw tantrums, and is completely affectionate. Anyone that knows Logan knows that he has made tremendous changes. I saw a lady from church at the grocery yesterday and she went on and on about how she couldn't believe it. He can walk, hold your hand, and be pleasant in the store...and that is on top of the extra time it takes to read EVERY.SINGLE.LABEL. We are just amazed at the differences we are witnessing! 

There have been the occasional mess-ups where I have slipped and given him something with corn and you can tell within 12-24 hours. His face gets a bumpy little rash and he gets hyper. Last week when Hailey came home sick from school I made her some tomato soup and I was so caught up in pampering her that when Logan asked for some of the tomato soup, I gave it to him not even thinking. Sure enough the 2nd ingredient in Campbell's Tomato Soup is high-fructose corn syrup. The next day his face was so red and bumpy and he couldn't calm himself down.

Needless to say we are forever grateful to Dr. Smits...Thanks to him Logan is a happy, healthy, and sweet little boy. My husband and I are still in awe that an allergy could result in these kinds of behaviors!   

We have decided that Logan is not going to go to preschool this year. I am working with him daily on his alphabet, numbers, colors, etc. and we have no doubt that he will be caught up, if not ahead, of the kids when he heads into Kindergarten. I want to take advantage of the time I get to spend with him. Over the last month or so our bond has become much stronger! :) Our little man is growing up!  

This is a picture of Logan sleeping on my mom and dad's couch. He loves his Nana and Papa's house!

Thanks for taking the time to read about Logan's progress! Love y'all!

Autumn

:)

I am going to give you just a quick update on Logan... He is doing great! He is able to focus, the tantrums are almost non-existant, HE CUDDLES (this is a big one!!!), he isn't having anymore accidents, and the big thing: He has been dry for 4 nights in a row!!!

This is a picture of Logan and his little cousin Madden. Look beyond the mix of all the crazy blankets and pillows and this is Logan being soooo sweet with his baby cousin. He layed with Madden and went right to sleep. Such sweet boys! Love them!

Enjoy your day! I am going to enjoy my babies!

Yes, Another Blog...

I know, I know...I just blogged yesterday! So you are probably wondering why the heck am I blogging again??? Well...I wasn't going to...I have actually held back ALL DAY, but I got soooo much more information at our OT appointment today I have got to share.

A couple of exciting things:

When we arrived (15 mins early) Logan's PT, Miss Deb that we saw yesterday, came out and wanted to "borrow" Logan... There was a company called SureStep that was in the building today and they actually had Logan walk on a mat with pressure sensors, along with video footage, to evaluate what his walking capabilities are. They did this with his shoes on, with his shoes off, and with braces on. When they were finished the lady doing this actually reviewed the findings with us. Logan walks toe to mid-foot. His heel doesn't even touch the ground when walking. An average person walks heel to toe. The braces did make a HUGE difference, but his therapist actually wants to wait so that she may use the next month or so to extend his range of motion naturally. If he would have the braces put on now it would take his foot from a 60 degree angle to a 90 degree angle without any excercise and it would be very painful! Needless to say, I am super happy we showed up 15 minutes early today! :)

We also reviewed his "sensory profile" results today with Miss Krista (OT). Logan scored "definite difference" in all catagories. This indicates that Logan is hypersensitive. We already kind of knew that he goes into "sensory overload" pretty easy. They have put him on what they refer to as a "sensory diet."

The sensory diet consists of tactile activities that help to desensitize him. These activities include finger painting, gluing, cutting, etc. We were also introduced to the "Wilbarger's Brushing Program." I have never seen anything like it. We have a soft brush that we take and do 10 repetitions of running the brush down each arm, each leg, and each side of his back. Following this we do joint compressions. We start with his arm/shoulder and gently push the arm toward the shoulder, then we move to the elbow and gently push the forearm and the upper arm toward eachother, etc. We do this to each joint including the hips, knees, ankles, and so on. This is done every 90 mins unless he is sleeping. He seem's to get really fidgety because he doesn't like to be touched, but the therapist has reassured us that after he gets used to it, it will create a calming effect.

The last thing that I thought was weird is that Logan has never had a nose bleed, and today his nose was bleeding off and on. It was strange! Of course you have ME who OVER THINKS EVERYTHING... I am sitting here wondering if somehow the joint compression could have caused the nose to bleed. Random thought, I know, but he has never had one and we have never done the joint compressions. Today we did joint compressions every 90 mins and his nose bled at least 7-8 times today. Hmmmm. I don't know?!

I am also super excited for tomorrow...it is his speech evaluation @ Turnstone! He got super lucky and is being evaluated by the BEST professor I had at IPFW who is a SLP. She is awesome! So I am looking forward to seeing her and having her do the eval. :)

Anyhow, thanks for hearing me babble! I just had to put out the update...

Love!
Autumn

Prayer Request and Logan's Results

First of all please say a quick prayer for my friend Beth and her family. Keegan has an MRI to check and see how things are doing. He is a brain cancer survivor and one of the cutest little boys ever! To view his story click here: karingforkeegan.blogspot.com

This morning I took Logan for his actual physical therapy evaluation. This was supposed to have been done 3 weeks ago, but we had a bad week with LOTS of snow, the next week he had a high fever, and then this past week we had EVEN MORE SNOW! So with all of that said, we finally got in there today and got things rolling!

We met with Miss Deb, Logan's new PT, and she was so sweet. Logan responded really well with her and she seemed to be extremely in tune to what is causing Logan some of the physical troubles. The two of them just clicked and I think this is another step in the right direction!!!

We did find out that Logan has significant low muscle tone on his left and right side (the right side is more severe than the left). She measured different things and Logan's feet (when you are sitting and bring your toes toward your chest) are only going to a 65 degree angle with Miss Deb's assistance and an average child has at least a 90 degree angle without assistance. He was also unable to manipulate his feet from side-to-side toward objects. The movement he has is so limited. She put him on a large excercise ball and pointed out that when she would roll him from side to side he doesn't have the instinct to catch himself by putting his foot out...instead he would take his foot and grab/hold onto the ball with his foot (which is what infants do when they cling on)...so he is also immature there. She was extremely informative the entire time she was evaluating. All I could think though is WHY have I never really noticed these things??? I feel like a terrible mom! As soon as she pointed out what she was observing, I could see it! I can now see it A LOT. I guess I never knew what to look for. She did ask a few times if he had ever recieved any type of PT...I think she was shocked that it has gone without notice. I just feel really bad! I know he walks on his toes, I know he is clumsy, but I just didn't think it was as big of a deal as what it is. I thought it was just LOGAN.

Our game plan now is to do PT once a week. She wants to observe and work with him a little while and see how he does. If his improvement is not substantial, we have to see the neurologist. There is a possibility that he also has a processing/coordination issue. The neurologist may be able to further investigate. :( I thought we were done with the scary things and that all of that kind of "stuff" had been ruled out. Another possibility is having braces put on his feet. The thought of that just makes me sad! One fun thing that they do have at Turnstone is a swim team for children his age... She highly recommended it. I definitely think we will let him participate in that and give him the social interaction!

On a positive note, his speech therapy is FINALLY being moved from Parkview to Turnstone!!! This is a GREAT thing! I was NOT impressed with Parkview's SLP's. They were nice ladies, but I just wasn't "feeling" it. I feel that Logan gets so much more out of Turnstone when he is there! And for the cherry on top...all 3 therapies are in ONE place! No more running here, there, and everywhere! :) Yay!!!

I will leave you with a cute pics of Logan from this weekend. We were tired of being cooped up and snowed in, so we got a hotel room and let the kiddos swim! We had a great time.

Love,
Autumn

Our 2 Week Re-Check

Yesterday we had Logan's 2 week check-in @ The Allergy and Asthma Center. For the record, the staff there are AMAZING. Seriously! Over these two weeks I have been shocked at the difference we have witnessed! I never in a million years would have thought that allergies/asthma would have been the underlying cause of most of his problems (minus the developmental delays).

The allergist checked him out and his lung function has improved 15% since the last time we were in the office. His Advair has made a WORLD OF DIFFERENCE! It's awesome! I love knowing that he is able to get a restful nights sleep now... I still have yet to get used to the routine! I probably wake up 3-4 times a night checking on him to make sure he is breathing (because his noisy breathing is GONE)! :)

We have officially been corn-free for 2 weeks. It is going great, not near as hard as it was initially. We are actually saving quite a bit of money because it is so.much.easier to eat at home and know exactly what he is getting vs. doing a whole lotta research before going out to eat OR trusting that the waiter/waitress will really check the ingredients! We are now allowed to do a "corn challenge" if we want. It is where you introduce different corn derived ingredients one at a time and document which ones causes symptoms and what type of symptoms. My husband and I have just decided we know he is allergic, he is making progress, so we will wait to do that for a while. :)

Thanks for taking the time to read about our Logan! He sure is making progress and this makes us SUPER HAPPY! :) See ya soon!

By the way...check out the circles under his eyes!!! They are slowly fading!!! :)

Autumn