December 2012

Hello All! Just wanted to give a quick update on Colt. Colt started Mother's Day out in September and is adjusting pretty well. He only goes 2 days a week, but those 2 days have really helped his socialization skills. He still cries a little when I drop him off, but his teachers send me pictures of him right after I leave and he is perfectly happy. I couldn't ask for better teachers for Colt- they are so patient and kind and understand his medical background, which puts me at ease. I'm not sure if I mentioned in a previous blog that Colt is recieving speech therapy through ECI. His therapist use to work at the school I taught at so it worked out perfectly that she can now be his speech therapist! Colt has definitely made improvements in his speech since starting therapy, but mothers intuition told me that there was still something not right. Colt understands/comprehends speech perfectly fine. He cannot get the words out to tell us what he wants. We have been doing sign language with him, but recently he has started not wanting to sign at all. His therapist mentioned yesterday that she thinks he could possibly have something called speech apraxia. Basically, Colt understands speech and knows what he wants to say in his head, but his brain is missing the step that tells his mouth to move and get the words out. We honestly don't know if this was caused by all the chemo he was exposed to or if he was just born with the issue....we probably will never know, but my thinking is it was from the chemo because he was saying a few words before he went to transplant. The difficult part of this for me, is there is no long term research on kids that have been exposed to chemo at such a young age and all the other nasty drugs he had to take. I believe with intense speech therapy that Colt can overcome this condition. He is a fighter naturally, so this is just another battle for him. It is really hard as a mom to see your child struggle so hard to talk, when it comes so natural to the majority of the population. I will do whatever it takes to give Colt the best chance at the future. Like I mentioned before, his speech therapist is awesome and I know with time my little fighter will be talking. He is very verbal, you just dont know what he is telling you a lot of the times! He can clearly say- momma, daddy, no, yes/yah, ball, more, mine, ack for snack, mine, and sometimes says I did it. So we know he can talk, its just going to take a lot of repetition for him to learn new words and hold onto those words. Please continue to keep Colt in your prayers :)