Monday 24 March 2014

A Difficult Week

Last week was a difficult week.
Now C has turned 2 there has been a flurry of activity into her health.
Before now it has been a waiting game.
Now they are ready to take action.


On Monday we met with the Speech Therapist for a follow up appointment to our appointment in December.  As discussed here, in that time C has grasped two new word, Dada and Baba (baby).
The appointment played out very similarly to our last one.  The therapist spent the first half of the session sat on the floor interacting with C.  C was very accommodating and played happily, listening and responding to the instructions given to her.
The second half was a discussion with DH and I regarding her finding and where to go from here.
The therapist commented again what a bright, engaging child C is, but she was still concerned about her speech progress.  She suggested 3 sessions of video therapy where C and I are recorded playing to together while being observed by a therapist. They then would suggest activities I can do with her to to help promote her speech.
She also suggested 3 one to one sessions with a therapist to see how C responded.  C is still very young though for this type of treatment and we were warned she may not get as much out of this.
I queried whether she thought C could have something more serious than simple speech delay, like verbal dyspraxia; however although she is showing some dyspraxic tendencies the therapist was understandably unwilling to label her with anything at such a young age.
Finally the therapist would put our names down for a Makaton course so that we can teach C to sign her needs to help in the meantime.
All in all a productive session.  I don't think we could have expected any more from it.
I think I will find it hard not to take the video session feedback as criticism of my parenting skills.  It will be hard to hear someone else tell me how to interact with my child.

On Tuesday C had her taster session at pre-school.
Ok, so this wasn't a medical appointment but still a huge milestone for C.
We have enrolled her to start after Easter.
I know some will consider this early but it will only be for 2 mornings a week and I really do feel C is ready for me to loosen the apron strings just a little.
I was pretty sure that she would be fine but that doesn't stop that nagging worry in the back of your mind.
We specifically chose Tuesday afternoon for the taster session as it one of their quieter times.  Many of the children are down for an afternoon nap.
When we arrived there were only 2 children up and they were sat having some quiet time.
C did not blink an eyelid and ran off to play at the sand table.
She seemed perfectly at ease in her surroundings.
The preschool teacher suggested we could leave her for half an hour if we wanted.
We needed to go to the school office to collect her preschool sweatshirt and had some addition forms to fill in so this worked out quite well.
As expected C had a half hearted cry as we left but we were pretty confident she could easily to distracted away.
We returned half an hour later and as expected C was happily playing.
She was excited to see us which was nice but hopefully that reassured her that although we will leave her, we will always come back to get her.

On Thursday we had a hospital appointment with the Eye Consultant to discuss C's blocked tear ducts.  She has had them since birth but they had seemed to be getting better, however since she had a cold in January they have got steadily worse again.
I was in 2 minds what I wanted from this appointment.  The only treatment really from here would be to stick a probe through the tear ducts to unblock them.  This would require a General Aesthetic.  The second in C's short little life.  Although a fairly simple procedure, all aesthetics carry a risk and not something I would want to put her through unless absolutely necessary.  On the other hand, her eyes are really starting to irritate her now.  As well as being unsightly, it is making her eye lids sore and irritating the eczema on her cheek.
The Consultant studied C's eyes and actually seemed quite shocked how bad they were.  She advised surgery as soon as possible.
In some ways this is better than it being left to me to make an elective decision.
We should get a date for sometime within the next 6-8 weeks.

And so here we are.

I survived. C survived. We survived.
I can only hope this is beginning to get things sorted.
There is a long road ahead though.

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