Hello everyone! Thanks for checking in again with our journey with James Michael. It's felt like quite the grind during this covid-19 season of life we all find ourselves in. Doing James' therapy strictly at home has been hard to say the least but we've been managing okay and have tried to make the best of it.
Throughout the past month, I have had 4 phone conversations with Holland Bloorview (children's rehabilitation centre in Toronto) about augmented communication for James. We were referred by our local children's centre, Grandview, in January and just recently, have been officially accepted into the augmented communication program after submitting many videos in the hopes of meeting their screening criteria. It was a stressful process to say the least but we're very happy that James has been accepted to the program and look forward to their expertise to help us further develop James' communication skills in the form of an augmented device of some kind or possibly multiple types. We start next week to meet virtually on a weekly basis. A couple blog posts ago I described the PODD system that we're currently using to communicate with James, along with some low tech picture boards too. If you missed that post, you can get caught up here.
Here are some highlights of our therapy at home.
The vibration plate has been wonderful to own especially as we're doing lots of home therapy. It helps strengthen muscles and bones as well as improves circulation. I've been using it in my workouts too - a bonus!
We try to get James in his creeper crawler once and awhile. We want him to increase the duration he can stay in the four point position.
James uses his stander at least once a day. It's definitely the most used piece of equipment we have for James.
We've incorporated some fun outdoor exercises too. Thanks to Tim and Lindsay Wadsworth for giving us a kids sized basketball net!
It's ideal when exercise can also be fun!
It was a true joy to take James to SMILE therapy for kids on June 1st when they reopened. Therapy is slowly starting back with lots of precautions in place. James goes to SMILE on Monday's and Tuesday's where he does physiotherapy (specifically Medek), strength training and occupational therapy. It has been so nice to see our team at SMILE again. Gradually, other therapy clinics will open again too. Grandview (our local children's centre) will likely be the last to offer therapy again.
Strength training with Nicole & Jamie:
James returned to see his massage therapist, Shannon, yesterday. It was so good to see her! James' body was in desperate need of a massage. He was very tight. We'll be seeing her again next week and then every other week after that.
We had a very exciting and much anticipated delivery 2 days ago - James' first adapted tricycle! We want to thank the Whitby Rotary for their donation a couple months ago to help us purchase this for James as well as our many donors throughout the last 12+ months. You have made this possible for us to provide for James and for that we are forever grateful. This increases James' freedom significantly and the therapy and fun it provides is an awesome 2 in 1! James LOVES it! The trike has the ability for him to pedal on his own and also for his feet to pedal while we push him. It'll be well used this summer! His smile says it all when he tried it out for the first time:
We've had some fun together during this interesting phase of life. Here are some photo and video highlights:
Daddy and Shae had fun recording Shae's Family Elmo Song.