Watching Brother Bear, one of our favs!
Last week Nana and Granddaddy came to play with us while Mommy was in a meeting at work.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Visiting with Nana & Granddaddy
Watching Brother Bear, one of our favs!
Last week Nana and Granddaddy came to play with us while Mommy was in a meeting at work.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Yea! More swimming!
Bin swimming to Karen
Look at Bin! Swimming all by himself!
Bin and Mary
Brooke and Oaxie...snack time
Bin pretending to go, night-night
We went swimming at Mary's house today. Karen and her granddaughter, Brooke came and we all had so much fun. Mary's pool is brand new and very nice. It has lots of waterfalls which we liked a lot. Oaxie swam for a little while at the beginning and then decided to hang out around the outside of the pool playing with balls, and grazing at the food table!:) She may not look like Mommy but she knows how to eat like her!!!! Bin stayed in the pool the entire day, of course. He was swimming with his new arm floaties. It did not take him long to figure out how to stay upright in the water with them on and then he did not want to be held or helped any more. He was such a big boy swimming all by himself! Oaxie finally got back in the pool after a while and hung out on the steps and played with the rings. She threw them while the rest of us dove to get them.
This time we switched back to our regular sunscreen and put shirts on half way through the day. None of us our sunburned, YEAAAA. (if you remember a few posts back how sunburned we all got last time we went to the pool) We hope to go back to Marys real soon!
Friday, July 18, 2008
What's this Mommy?
I was getting Bin ready for his bath last night and he was rubbing his head where his shunt is. I have not really noticed him doing that before. He said, "Whats this Mommy?" over and over again. I told him it was his shunt and tickled him all the way down to his belly to show him where it went to. Of course he did not get it, but was still cute. He is also counting to 10! When I was cleaning the dishes he and Oaxie were sitting on the floor and he started counting the rails on the baby gait. Oaxie chimed in a few numbers as well. I have never heard him do that before. I count to them all the time but am not sure they pay attention to me...I guess they do. He even counted for Granddaddy over the phone. Pretty impressive.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Bin's Doctor Appointment Updates
Well, we have been busy the past few weeks with Doctor appointments, so I figured I better keep everyone up to date with all the details. A while back I told you Bin had been choking on liquids so we had to take him to the GI and Neuro Doctor to try and figure out what is going on. They both wanted Bin to have a swallow test and a MRI.
The swallow test is where he has to drink fluids of all different consistencies with barium in it while all along being x-rayed to show if the fluid is going down his esophagus ( which is the correct pathway for ingested food/fluid) instead of his trachea which in turn goes to his lungs, causing him to aspirate (choke). They also wanted him to have a MRI to make sure his shunt is not malfunctioning and to check his Chiari Malformation. Almost 90 % of all children born with Spina Bifida have this malformation but very few have serious signs and symptoms from it. One of the signs is choking but since Bin's choking is very infrequent and not severe I was not to worried that it could be from his Chiari, but of course that is always in the back of my mind.
The MRI turned out basically normal. Bin's shunt is working fine and Dr. Honeycutt (neuro) said that his Chiari is so minimal that he could almost say that it is non-existent. WOW! That is grrrrreat news. He said he was very worried when it came time to read the results because he was fearing the worst. He was very surprised that neither the shunt nor the Chiari was the problem. He was very impressed that Bin is walking so well by himself. Bin walked across the room and gave him a hug and a high five! :)
However, the swallow test did not come back as we had hoped. He in fact is having swallowing issues. First of all, when he takes a drink of anything he takes in an extremely large amount at once. There is no way to decrease that amount unless you sit by his side and squeeze a straw for every little sip he takes to monitor the amount. Now, if anyone can do that with a 2 year old I would be very impressed. Secondly, when he swallows some of the fluid is going down his trachea. It is not going all the way to his lungs, thankfully!!! The doctor is worried that over time the nerves/muscles there will finally decrease in sensitivity and he will eventually start to completely aspirate, which would be very bad. So, now we have to thicken all of his fluids. Everything he drinks has to be the consistency of honey and let me tell you it has been very difficult to get this sweet boy to drink anything now! We have been trying all kinds of new drinks, smoothies and yogurt drinks. He is slowly getting better but he no longer drinks plain water because of this so we are now having to add juices to his water. I don't know why he refuses water now, I guess the thickener we have to add to it causes him to refuse it. We will go back in 6 months for another swallow test to see if the muscles have become stronger, swallowing the thicker liquids, and hopefully we will get to change back to a thinner consistency.
Bin also started Physical Therapy at Cook's and we are so impressed with it. His therapists name is Becca and she works great with him. She says he is extremely strong and can't believe he is walking all by himself. He was no where close to that just 2 months ago which is when we went for his initial evaluation with her. From now on Bin will go every 2 weeks. She is also going to look into some devices to help him turn his left foot in when he walks. We are very excited about that!
Other than that we have been having a fun filled summer and Bin and Oaxie are getting bigger and bigger every day. They are talking non-stop and sometimes using full sentences. They are just so smart!:) They totally crack us up every day. We love it!!!
The swallow test is where he has to drink fluids of all different consistencies with barium in it while all along being x-rayed to show if the fluid is going down his esophagus ( which is the correct pathway for ingested food/fluid) instead of his trachea which in turn goes to his lungs, causing him to aspirate (choke). They also wanted him to have a MRI to make sure his shunt is not malfunctioning and to check his Chiari Malformation. Almost 90 % of all children born with Spina Bifida have this malformation but very few have serious signs and symptoms from it. One of the signs is choking but since Bin's choking is very infrequent and not severe I was not to worried that it could be from his Chiari, but of course that is always in the back of my mind.
The MRI turned out basically normal. Bin's shunt is working fine and Dr. Honeycutt (neuro) said that his Chiari is so minimal that he could almost say that it is non-existent. WOW! That is grrrrreat news. He said he was very worried when it came time to read the results because he was fearing the worst. He was very surprised that neither the shunt nor the Chiari was the problem. He was very impressed that Bin is walking so well by himself. Bin walked across the room and gave him a hug and a high five! :)
However, the swallow test did not come back as we had hoped. He in fact is having swallowing issues. First of all, when he takes a drink of anything he takes in an extremely large amount at once. There is no way to decrease that amount unless you sit by his side and squeeze a straw for every little sip he takes to monitor the amount. Now, if anyone can do that with a 2 year old I would be very impressed. Secondly, when he swallows some of the fluid is going down his trachea. It is not going all the way to his lungs, thankfully!!! The doctor is worried that over time the nerves/muscles there will finally decrease in sensitivity and he will eventually start to completely aspirate, which would be very bad. So, now we have to thicken all of his fluids. Everything he drinks has to be the consistency of honey and let me tell you it has been very difficult to get this sweet boy to drink anything now! We have been trying all kinds of new drinks, smoothies and yogurt drinks. He is slowly getting better but he no longer drinks plain water because of this so we are now having to add juices to his water. I don't know why he refuses water now, I guess the thickener we have to add to it causes him to refuse it. We will go back in 6 months for another swallow test to see if the muscles have become stronger, swallowing the thicker liquids, and hopefully we will get to change back to a thinner consistency.
Bin also started Physical Therapy at Cook's and we are so impressed with it. His therapists name is Becca and she works great with him. She says he is extremely strong and can't believe he is walking all by himself. He was no where close to that just 2 months ago which is when we went for his initial evaluation with her. From now on Bin will go every 2 weeks. She is also going to look into some devices to help him turn his left foot in when he walks. We are very excited about that!
Other than that we have been having a fun filled summer and Bin and Oaxie are getting bigger and bigger every day. They are talking non-stop and sometimes using full sentences. They are just so smart!:) They totally crack us up every day. We love it!!!
Friday, July 4, 2008
Happy 4th of July
Tonight we went out to Daddy's shop to watch the Mineral Wells fire works show. The shop is not to far from where they fire them off, so it was a perfect spot. All of our grandparents were there including our Great Grandmother, MaMaw. She came all the way from Lubbock to visit us! We had so much fun playing with her. Mommy and Daddy's friends Kevin and Kacy came along with their families too. There was a big crowd. Everyone was there except Mommy, bummer. She had to work and she was soooooo sad she missed all the fun, especially going to get ice cream afterwards. She said she would not miss it next year!
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