Good News to Share

When Asher began physical therapy, he identified three long-term goals he wants to achieve:
1. Keep up with his friends when they run across the playground.
2. Pull himself up on the monkey bar (the low one on the playground) and flip himself around it.
3. Learn to pump his arms and legs to swing himself on the swing.

His physical therapist (PT) and he created short-term goals so that he can reach milestones along the way to his long-term goals. The PT wrote them down in Asher's PT notebook on the very front page. Then Asher and I promptly forgot them. On Monday, during his physical therapy session, I was reviewing the notebook and saw the goals. The first one was:

1. Run to the school bus stop (our neighbor's mailbox) without stopping.

So, this morning, as we headed to the school bus stop, I remembered the goal and reminded Asher. After safely looking both ways, he and Simi took off across the street and to the neighbor's mailbox (about 50 feet away). To Asher's surprise, he not only made it without stopping, but he and Simi reached the mailbox at the same time. It was a tie! Now, Asher was probably running full-out and Simi was trotting along, but that didn't matter. I don't think Asher noticed.

Asher was thrilled! He not only made it to the mailbox without stopping, but he and Simi tied arriving there. He was THRILLED!!! I made a big deal out of it.

Then he said, "Thank you"!!!!! I could barely believe my ears.

I gave him a hug and he said, "this is the best hug ever".

Yes, Asher, I couldn't agree more.

Silence

Endoscopies are always difficult on Asher and this last one was no exception. In fact, this last one was probably the most difficult on him. The pain and aches lasted for a full three weeks this time.

Just a couple of days after the endoscopy, I noticed that Asher was limping. He usually walks with a lazy sort of a lope, but now he was in full, serious, limp-mode. The doctor requested a blood test to check for arthritis and other inflammatory ailments. The blood-draw was extraordinarily hard on my little guy. His little body was extraordinarily sensitive and the blood draw just a bit too much at the wrong time.

Then, the Monday morning after the endoscopy (and blood-draw), Asher woke up and had a complete meltdown. To say that this was uncharacteristic of my easy-going, happy-go-lucky son is quite the understatement.

Asher had a meltdown because he didn't want to go to pre-school. He said he hated school. Said that his friends don't play with him. They don't play with him in the sandbox because they are too busy running and playing in higher energy activities. Asher can't play with his friends like they want to play because Asher can't keep up with them. My heart broke.

Just a few days earlier we received an evaluation from the occupational therapist requested by Asher's pre-school. Asher's feelings that he can't keep up with his friends were confirmed by the OT's report that Asher is well behind his schoolmates' capabilities.

All of this news completely devastated me. The worst was, of course, Asher's meltdown. I held him tight for a solid 20 minutes that Monday morning, let him cry it out, and then together we created a plan of action to get him moving in the right direction. It was enough to get him to dry his eyes, get dressed, and manage to get to school. By the next day, we had a physical therapy evaluation, the weekly occupational therapy, and a weekly gymnastics class scheduled. Later, we managed to schedule an appointment with an orthopedist to evaluate Asher's limp.

So here's the deal: Asher's food allergy is the immune system on overdrive. It's not just on overdrive with the food; it's also inflaming his joints and lots of other things in his teeny little body. Hence the limp. And the low energy levels. And the lack of movement.

Asher is working amazingly hard to get his body where it needs to be. He works really hard in OT, PT and gym class. At home, all he wants to do is exercise. He even begs to do the stuff most difficult for him. I suspect that Asher will always have to work hard at everything just to be where everyone else is naturally.

Food wise, we had to remove all the foods in this last trial (whimper!) and we put him back on a low dose of Flovent just to help him get over this post-endoscopy hurdle. This poor kid just can't seem to get a break.

Anyway, now you know the reason for the lack of blog entries. All of this was just a bit too much to handle, let alone write about.