Truckin forward…an update on Brady boy.
It has been SOOO long since I wrote. Not because I don’t want to, its actually very therapeutic…I just haven’t been able to find the time. So much has happened, I need to catch you all up on our beautiful boy Brady. I’ll start by building on Jerod’s blog…we have words!!! They aren’t regular yet, although he came very close to saying TV again today when using his PEC for it. Today, he said a new one! When his new speech therapist brought him out to see me after their session, she was telling me about how things had gone. We weren’t paying attention to Brady, so he took my hand in his, looked up and said “bye bye”. We both stopped talking, looked down at him, and he said it a second time! It was the most beautiful word I’ve ever heard. We walked right out of there, I hugged and kissed him into his car seat, hopped in the car myself, and called Jerod through my tears to share the news. Today was a VERY happy day. I pray that these words stay with him and don’t slip away.
So much to share…we have a new speech therapist, Abby. The location isn’t the most convenient for us, about a 20 minute drive each way, not the most amazing part of town, but so far she is worth it. The first 2 visits were a little tough – Brady was used to having speech at home and not used to be taken away from Mommy in a strange location. But it seems now that he is adapting well and responding to her. She has shared some good ideas with us and helped us to expand his PECs use beyond food and drink. Typically that is the only thing he wanted to request with his PECs, but boy oh boy has that changed. Today I learned just how smart (and manipulative) Brady truly can be. Brady has become a huge fan of the outdoors this summer…he can’t get enough of it. In our backyard is his new swingset and a blow up pool – his two favorite things apparently. So, we introduced PECs of these two preferred things to him today. Well, in both of his ABA sessions he first requested the pool…his therapists took him out to swim…went back to do more therapy…he then requested his swingset…back to do more again…and so on. He completely gets it now out to get out of work, and I am proud of him for it! We have introduced a “No Page” in the PECs book now so that he can learn to understand he can’t always have what he wants. I see a few meltdowns as he learns this concept, but what toddler doesn’t throw a fit at some point when told no? If only we could get him to keep his clothes on when swimming…he has become a water log…but he prefers to swim in the nude…oh the beauties of childhood.
His ABA/IBI therapy is going well. I had built up a lot of tension and stress about our program as a whole recently – questioning everything we were doing, dissatisfied with the involvement level of myself and others, feeling Brady hadn’t accomplished all he could have so far. But now, after mapping out some new plans with our amazing consultant, I feel like our program is taking a breath of fresh air. There are still some tweaking to be done, but I really feel like we are in a much better place with our program as a whole, with the goals and targets we’ve set forth for Brady, and with our expectations of him. We are beginning the generalization process with all of Brady’s mastered skills, and this is the most exciting for Jerod and I…we are able to see Brady transfer the skills he has learned out of his therapy room and slowly into our every day lives. When we began this therapy with Brady, to get him to attempt to roll a ball (or any ball play) was quite the task…he wanted nothing to do with it. Now he is rolling the ball to us pretty consistently and even starting to make some progress with throwing a ball. Good thing since he is throwing out the first pitch at the Clippers game on August 20th with Daddy!
We are on a break from OT right now, but we are very excited to restart the first week of September. Brady has been doing some great things on his own though – climbing stairs up and down totally on his own, climbing anything actually (to the point we are having to lock up rooms off limits since he doesn’t understand he can’t climb some things), jumping like a wild man on beds or trampolines or couches, running and jumping into a pool…even making some progress on two of his most difficult self help skills – drinking from an open cup and feeding himself with a spoon. I can’t wait to get back into OT and build on these accomplishments. We are working hard to learn to ride a bigwheel/bike right now.
Then there is the world of biomedical…a job in itself. We are well on the road to healing Brady’s gut…slowly. We are supplementing many of his vitamin and mineral deficiencies already, which has been pretty easy so far. This week we began his antifungal treatment – to fight the yeast. Dr. DeMio told us that in all the ASD kids he has seen, Brady’s yeast levels were some of the highest. That is pretty frightening considering he isn’t even 3 years old yet. We have some probiotics in place to help move the high bacteria levels through his body, so now we begin the right against yeast. We will cross our fingers that this goes smoothly and we can get this right for Brady. We still have a long road ahead – doing antiviral to fight the strep in his gut, HBOT sessions, etc…but it is a slow journey we are taking. We are doing as low sugar a diet as possible, with fruit sugars being our main source. I am willing to do whatever we need to to recover Brady, but I also want to let him be a kid and eat a banana or a grilled cheese sandwich or whatever! Lucky for us, Brady doesn’t care for cake or icecream or many high sucrose foods…but the boy LOVES his fruit and fruit juice. One of the most positive experiences through the biomedical approach so far is the AMAZING mommies I have met. Some of these moms only do biomed, some also do ABA as we do…but they are all truly amazing. I have learned so much from them already and they are so happy to help and answer questions. One mom put it best – “It’s the best group of women you wish you never had to meet”.
We are gearing up for preschool now – only 4 more weeks until preschool starts and Brady turns 3. Brady will be attending a private typical preschool at the church we now attend with his therapist Ashley as his aide. I am very excited and nervous for thus step. I believe this could be an amazing learning opportunity for him, but I am afraid to get my hopes too high…what if he never notices the other kids, never does any parallel play, never takes anything from this? I pray that he is able to make the most of preschool and picks up on the skills of the other kids. I am SO happy we have found a church to call home, it has been such a blessing. With everything going on in our lives, we need faith. We had Ty baptized this past Sunday at Prince of Peace and Brady did really well. This is the first church I have ever even considered leaving him in the nursery and so far so good!
Another big step Brady has taken recently is his toy play. Since Brady’s regression from 12-18 months, he hasn’t had the desire to get a toy out and play with it. If I got something out and sat down with him, occasionally he would play with it for a second…probably not appropriately…and usually he would gt up and run away. But for the past couple weeks, and increasingly so, my house is a wreck every night…AND I LOVE IT!!! He is getting out all different toys, playing for a few minutes, getting out something else, then looking through a book, playing with his pop beads or accordion tubes. He has even seemingly been starting to imagine a tiny bit – wearing the accordion tubes on his arms, putting my shoes on and walking around in them, playing with colorforms. I really feel as though we are on the verge of a major breakthrough – whether it might be talking or imaginative play or whatever – we need it! We’ve never had what I would call a breakthrough, and I hope I’m not getting my hopes up for nothing…but I feel one is on the horizon.
Another MAJOR accomplishment for Brady is he is taking us to things now…something he has NEVER done. He will take your hand a drag you where he wants you - whether it be onto the couch to snuggle, over to the swingset to give him a push, and over to his pool…and then he will push you in because he wnats to splash around and play with you! This weekend me parents were visiting for Ty’s baptism, and Brady did something new. My parents have been here at least once a month all of the 3 years of Brady’s life. Every time they visit, they unload their cvar when they first arrive. Brady sometimes notices them come in, but has never pais any attention to the unloading process. On Saturday, he followed my Mom every single time she went to the garage and came back! The littlest things get an autism Mommy so excited! My Mom and I were in amazement how much more aware he was and how interested he was in something he never even seemed to notice before.
So, that’s a quick update on Brady. I could go on for hours, but I promise to update at least weekly again, hopefully more. I know I talked about mostly positive notes, but I won’t fool you – there are plenty of challenges too. Brady has learned the art of teeth grinding, seems to finally be going through a spell of the terrible 2’s, and can produce a mighty strong meltdown when he has to come indoors. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers and we move forward in his world of autism…and hopefully one day out of it.
