Update #42

I had to drive down to Virginia Beach today to get our taxes done, so I missed all of Ryan's therapies. But, I got reports from the therapists. Here is what I learned.

Ryan walked the length of the parallel bars three times. (There are parallel bars that he walks between so that he can use his arms to support himself.) He is still getting a lot of assistance from the physical therapist. He also sat upright on his own for 15 seconds.

In OT, Ryan worked with the clothes-pins again. He was more successful with this exercise today. They also worked with him on sitting upright, but didn't have as much success as PT did.

KT did some exercises with Ryan's arms and legs. They said that they didn't get much response at all from his left arm. But, they said that it is normal for patients to have good days and bad days with certain therapy sessions.

Speech therapy was so proud of Ryan's progress. The nurse told me that the therapist did her "happy dance" when Ryan spoke. I am sorry I missed it.

Ryan's vision therapist came to check his eyes with a behavioral optometrist. She left me a note stating that Ryan's visual activity had improved since she last saw him on Friday. His vision is 20/25 in both eyes.

She said that they tried partial occlusion glasses. (These are glasses with tape on the outer edges. This forces the eyes to look more towards the center in unison so that they don't look in different directions.) She said that they helped, but that he isn't ready to used them in therapy yet.

She left a patch for Ryan to wear for about 30-45 minutes alternately on each eye. This will help the brain rely on both eyes. Right now he is relying more on the left eye. If this goes on, the brain could shut down activity in his right eye all together.