Appointments, Appointments, Appointments

We brought Ava back to the doctor yesterday and her legs are now almost completely healed.

We met with a neurologist from Gillette Children's Hospital today. She did an evaluation of Brady and also went over Brady's brain MRI with us (the one taken at Amplatz).

She pretty much echoed everything else we've been hearing lately. Brady was smiling and cooing the entire time during her evaluation, and she was very impressed with everything cognitive (tracking with eyes, talking, etc.).

She said Brady had muscle stiffness in his arms and his legs, but she's optimistic that therapy will help him. She wanted us to set up a number of more appointments for the next few weeks.

Brady will do an EEG brain test for two hours on Monday. Because of Brady's brain injuries, there still is some concern for seizures. Brady has been on seizure medicine since the day of his birth. The EEG exam will give us a better idea of his current brain activity and whether or not we can start weening him from the seizure medicine.

We will have a follow up appointment with the neurologist on Tuesday to go over the EEG results.

Brady also has an appointment for physical therapy at Gillette Children's on Tuesday. We will have these appointments every other week until October, and then they will reevaluate and create a new plan (or continue the existing treatment).

The neurologist also asked us to schedule an appointment with a Physical Muscle & Rehabilitation (PM&R) doctor at Gillette in August. The PM&R doctor will direct the rehabilitation team that may include physical or occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, social workers, etc.

Because of Brady's birth history (collapsed lung due to meconium) and the fact that his breaths are still fast and shallow, the neurologist also asked us to make an appointment to see a pulmonary specialist at Gillette in October.

Got all of that? Whew.

In addition, Brady saw the home care nurse today. He now weighs 16 pounds (90th percentile), and is 24 inches long (70th percentile). Since Brady is doing well with his growth, that nurse might not need to visit in the future.

The school district's therapist is coming on Thursday to work with Brady.

Next Friday we also have our four month follow up appointment at Amplatz. They will do their evaluation of him and give us their thoughts for future treatment. They will also do another swallow study at that time to see if Brady still has any aspiration problems and if we can eliminate his thickener.

I remember back to our time in the NICU. Once we felt confident Brady was going to live, we started asking questions about his future. They told us that the four month follow up appointment would answer some of our questions. At the time, four months seemed like such a long time to wait. It's hard to believe that appointment is next week.

These four months have really flown by. We're so proud of Brady's progress, and we're hopeful that all of his upcoming appointments will continue to help him grow more strong and healthy.

Thanks for your constant support and encouragement. We feel so blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful family and friends.

With love,

Tyler, Ali, Ava, Casey and Brady