Zeke's Doctor

Here's Zeke happily playing in the waiting room of his doctor's office. He loves going to the doctor. Here's a medical update on Zeke: His team of doctors continue to be amazed at how well he's doing. At this visit, they monitored his gait (walking), checked his braces, fixed the broken straps and shaved off more of the plastic in the back of his braces to give him a bit more flexibility. He used to crouch while walking but is now able to stand straight so the doctors want to be able to give him flexibility to bend his ankles a bit. It will make stairs and bending over a lot easier. It's kind of trial and error with his braces since the goal is to give him flexibility of movement but still support and correct in the right places. . Zeke can now: *stand in one place without support *swing and hit a baseball while standing on his own *get off the floor by himself without using anything to pull himself up *RUN!!! *walk up and down stairs by himself *swim - he passed level 1 in swimming lessons *play and walk in the backyard without a walker - he's ditched the walker completely :) *eats whatever we eat and can do it without any help *has a great vocabulary and talks in complete sentences *go to the bathroom by himself - he can even stand like his brothers *get dressed by himself - still needs help with buttons, but can do zippers and some snaps *put on his socks, braces and shoes (I help adjust them after he's done) *make his own bed *brush his own teeth *tells anyone who'll listen how much he loves his mom :) . I'm sure that's not a complete list but you get the idea. He's come so far. When Zeke came to live with us almost 3 years ago (see his picture in a previous blog entry), he was crawling and could only take 2 lunging steps on his own. He was in diapers and being spoon fed soft foods. His vocabulary was probably less than 20 words. He would bite and scratch when he was frustrated. He hated women and wouldn't have anything to do with them, myself included. . He is blessed with a strong will and has no comprehension that there is anything he can't do. And we don't tell him otherwise! I still remember one time that I took him in for a checkup with our pediatrician and one of the routine questions she asked was if he was potty trained and continant. I responded that he was. She looked at me with suprise on her face and said that was usually very hard for kids with cerebral palsy. I said that no one had told us that, so we never told Zeke :) We're not really interested in what he can't do, just in what he can do. . I also had a heated discussion this past year with Zeke's school physical therapist. He informed me after Zeke's surgery that he had worked with lots of kids with cerebral palsy and it was unrealistic of me to expect Zeke to ever be able to walk without a walker. This was after this therapist had decided to discontinue Zeke's mandated therapy at school and hadn't let me know. Let's just say that he released the mother bear in me. I told him, in no uncertain terms, that he WOULD make up Zeke's therapy. And I also let him know that he could tell me what Zeke was doing now, or even what he might be doing next week, but DO NOT EVER TRY TO TELL ME THAT HE CANNOT DO SOMETHING IN THE FUTURE! And then I directly quoted the law to him concerning the required therapy that Zeke was entitled to! Let's just say that the therapist DID make up the therapy time with Zeke and DIDN'T last out the year. The current physical therapist is one that Zeke worked with at the Brookings Hospital when I was taking him 5 days a week post surgery and she is awesome with Zeke! .

Zeke and I (and whoever else I have to bring along) visit his team of doctors in Sioux Falls about every 6 weeks. In November, he has a scheduled checkup in St. Paul at Gillette Children's Hospital to follow up on his selective dorsal rhysotomy surgery from last September. Then we'll know for sure whether or not he needs to have orthapedic surgery.

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A lot of information, I know, but I sometimes forget how far Zeke has come. We see him every day and so we tend to take a lot for granted. I think that's part of the reason I enjoy seeing Dr. Johnson in Sioux Falls. Because she sees him every six weeks, she is so encouraged by his progress. Incidently, because she's in a bigger city in a fairly central location, Zeke actually started seeing her when he entered foster care so she's actually been with him longer than we have.

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All in all, Zeke's doing awesome!