Kanyon age 3: Physical

So much of Kanyon's little life has revolved around working towards goals in his physical development. He literally started 2 times a week 45 min. Physical Therapy (PT) the week he got home from the hospital and we've never stopped. He also began the same routine with Occupational Therapy (OT) then too. Both have been non-stop and a permanent fixture in our daily lives. We've watched klp go from a blob of a baby to a lanky strong boy scooting all over the place. Our friends and family (including blog world) have been so faithful in cheering Kanyon on and being so happy when he reaches a new milestone. Kory and I were talking about it the other night and we feel so blessed by how many people love Kanyon. He has SOOOOOO many people that are proud of him when he does something great! We know this is shaping him as a person and we are so thankful! klp is doing great things right now and while none of them have happened quickly, we learned a long time ago to let go of deadlines and just work hard! We never have known what to expect as far as how much klp will be able to do and we still don't....we are learning as we go. We are thrilled with where we are and know that none of this was guaranteed. Here is what he's doing now.

Crawling is mastered but still not really used much. However he will get up on all fours to climb over things (i.e. US on the floor....ouch). We like for him to do this because he needs the weight bearing on his arms, especially his left one, but he will probably never CHOOSE to crawl. When he does crawl, it is pretty symmetrical which is good for him!

Scooting is obviously his preferred mode of transportation and he's quite good at it. We are glad that he figured this out, but it is almost too good. Now he doesn't want to do anything else. It has caused him to develop some bad habits that we are now working on getting rid of. He keeps his right leg straight when he scoots and therefore wants to keep it strait all the time. This is affecting his walking as well as squatting, climbing or anything else where he needs to bend his knee. We need this right leg to perform at its best because that leg is where most of his strength is so he's going to need to depend on it a little more. While he scoots, he keeps his left leg bent which we're constantly trying to straighten out! That has a lot to do with muscle tone. His CP plays out in his body with tight muscles (mostly on his left side). The muscles behind his knee are particularly tight and don't want to let his leg get all the way straight. So while we're trying to bend the right knee, we're trying to straighten the left one!! Confused yet?

He can roll over to all 4's then reach up and climb onto things if they aren't too high. There are some chairs in our house that he can get up on without help. He can sometimes even pull himself up to standing going from all fours to one knee, to standing and holding on. (this is usually followed by a *lovely* noise asking us to help him get all the way up). He uses a lot of his upper body strength to pull himself up. He can climb down from most things and does it really great. He is so good about rolling over and going backwards. He would even do it out of his little kid sided chair and its not even 6 in. off the ground. He finally realized he could probably safely scoot off the edge of that one without turning around! Sometimes he gets "stuck" trying to get down because he doesn't want to bend his right knee so he can't sit down. Enter *lovely* noise asking for help with that too.

His newest thing is that he can cruise the length of our couch independently. Its just the right height that allows him to lean a lot of his weight over onto the couch while he takes his steps sideways. Again, he compensates for his weaker legs by leaning over onto the couch and using his upper body to pull himself along. We are now working on cruising and holding on to things that are higher to encourage less use of his upper body and more of his legs.

He can walk if you're holding his hands or his body. He can move his gait trainer on his own (quite fast I might add....we had to put some resistance on it to slow him down) and he can even move his Amtryke forward on his own (a little bit).

He can climb stairs on all fours very good now. He loves to do it and its great exercise because he's using all 4 limbs! He can also control himself while he bumps down them too.

For a long time his PT was focused on crawling now we're pretty much 100% working towards walking, posture, building trunk strength, etc.

The OT spends more of her time with weight bearing things for his arms and upper body. This is good for his left side especially as it builds awareness, helps muscle tone, and builds strength. We are working towards getting that left arm and hand more functional. As of right now, it can't really do anything. He has gotten much better about moving it and just recently has started raising it up over his head (like to say YEAH!) or sign "drive" or even clap over his head when he's really excited! So that is great for his range of motion. His hand is fisted very tightly and that is the main thing that keeps it from being functional. He's getting better at opening it and with assistance can grasp things and then let go of them. That left hand is work work work, but we're not going to give up on it! Our OT uses taping to stimulate his arm/hand muscles and he also has a new brace that just holds out his thumb (if your thumb is out, the rest of your fingers will usually open better).

Another thing the OT "plays with" is his eyes. We work on tracking objects up and down and left to right working to build strength in those muscles. Particularly to try to get him to look straight on at things. She told me that its hardest to look straight ahead because that requires all of the eye muscles to work together and that is hard work!! You never think about moving your eyes as hard, but it is!

We do hippotherapy once a week and that is still going great. We've switched horses to Brandy now and they seem to get along just great. They do lots of weight bearing while on the horse too and with the added movement of the horse, he's constantly having to balance that alone builds strength no matter what position they have him riding in. They trot and he's getting so much better at sitting up big and tall even while they trot (a squeal and giggle can usually be heard across the arena when the trotting is going on!). He's less floppy and able to hold himself steady much better.

Something that encourages me a lot is that all of the things that we are working on, including walking, his body knows how to do. I'm glad we aren't having to tell his body what to do. Well, we are tweaking some things, but for the most part, he knows how to do it. We are just working on getting strong enough to do it independently. Strength Strength Strength.

I will now get on somewhat of a soap box. NOT AT ALL to be taken as negatively spoken, but just a thought. Any time you have a child with disabilities, it seems like all questions (from day 1 forward) are about walking. Will my child walk? Can he walk? When is he going to walk? Is your kid walking? etc. etc. etc. Don't get me wrong. I want Kanyon to walk. I want Kanyon to RUN! BUT walking is not the be-all-end-all of everything. I think I might have placed more value on it before all of this, but I quickly realized that its not that big of a deal. There are way more things other than walking that I hope Kanyon develops. No one wants their child to never walk, but it happens to a lot of people and it might happen to us, who knows. My point is I am not narrowly focused on this. I want him to have a strong mind, communicate, build relationships with the people around him and of course grow to be confident, kind, hard working, and Christ-like.

Ok Thats it! :)

We are so proud of him. SO PROUD. One of the hardest things for me is having to watch everything.......EVERYTHING be so hard for my boy. He doesn't know any different and I hate that for him. He has to spend so much energy and strength doing the smallest things and there are so many things he can't do. It makes his life (and ours) significantly more "tricky" but more than anything, its just so hard to watch everything be so hard. I would do anything to make it easier for him. That is why we work so hard in therapy and that is why I will stop at nothing to give him the best chance at doing the things he wants to do. I don't want klp to ever think our love for him is based on how much he learns to do. We are so proud of him with each new thing and can't wait to see what he's gonna keep learning!