Nathan knows therapy
April 11, 2010
I wrote in my very first posting about how I am almost everything Nike. Over two decades ago, Nike chose Bo Jackson to be their spokesperson as the total athlete. If Bo Jackson was the frontrunner for cross-training, Nathan seems to be trying to fill those size 16 shoes.
With all of Nathan’s therapies and sports he’s definitely put through the gauntlet. We could almost make our own commercial. “Nathan knows PT…Nathan knows OT…Nathan knows: speech therapy, equine assisted therapy, adapted swimming, adapted gymnastics, home programs, treadmills, basically Nathan knows therapy.” The problem would be trying to fit it into a 30 second spot.
He works so hard and we’re so proud of him. I know growing up, I was fortunate to be able to participate in many activities, but I can’t say that any of them were as demanding as what he goes through nearly 7-days a week. Nathan doesn’t like to show skills that are “a work in progress.” He doesn’t like people thinking “he’s so close,” he wants others to say “Wow! Look what he can do.” Last week he gave us one of those moments.
In speech therapy, Nathan chooses a toy, book or video to play. He’s using his building fine motor skills trying to isolate his index finger (opposed to using his entire hand) which is one of our OT goals. Someday this will allow the size of each to decrease and more options to be put on the screen. During this particular session, Nathan was consistently choosing the V-Tech Fun Fair over all of the others. Of course this toy is out of production, and to try to get one now the cost is outrageous.
Still while trying to work on communication skills, he’s sitting there working his pointer finger to open up the little yellow gate to get the balls out, grabbing the balls and reaching up to different parts of the toy, playing like a champ. Normally the high tone in his arms keep him from getting them very high, but he’s reaching up to the top branch of the spiral slide on the left.
After 2-3 minutes of playtime, the toy is placed back on the table and he has to make another choice to play with that toy or another. This day he was an expert in finding the same toy on the screen and picking right up where he left off. One time, as Kerrie was putting it in front of him, she accidentally hit of the of the seats on the Ferris wheel, and Nathan looked intrigued. He really hadn’t seen how that part worked. He took the next ball out and put it in one of the seats, then grabbed a second and then the third, never trying to put more than one in any seat. He was willing to reach to the top car and carefully open his fingers to make sure it stayed in. Kerrie started to allow a little bit more and more time with the toy as he worked his OT skills in speech therapy.
Even tonight, a “new” episode of The Backyardagains came on. He was laying on the floor for the theme song like normal, but as soon as the real episode started, and it wasn’t one he knew, he started fussing. We thought he was upset that it wasn’t one of his favorites, but I sat him up nonetheless, got him into a sitting position, under the premise of if he fell over or threw himself back, he’d have to lay there a while. Nathan can normally hold himself up for 4-5 minutes at a time, but then his trunk muscles get sore, he’ll wiggle and over he’ll go. We were shocked to see how hard he wanted to watch this show (we’re now regretting we didn’t DVR it) but he fought and fought to see every last second of it. You could tell he was getting tired and sore as he’d sway and shift, but doing everything he could not to lose focus. He made it the whole show, but as soon as the credits started he collapsed.
Like I said, he’s such a hard worker and having to work so many things. He’s our Nike star even if no one ever wants to put him on a cereal box.
The end of spring break
Nathan’s spring break from school was two weeks ago, the same time that OSU is out as the student helpers, are a main part of the staff, but this week everything kicks up in to high gear. Gymnastics is in it’s second week, swimming starts this week as does his horseback riding. We’re only halfway through the treadmill study, school is in high gear, and this is a week with OT and speech in their regularly-scheduled spots. Even though Saturday doesn’t bring any formal activities Grandma and Aunt Amy are scheduled to visit, so he’ll have a full day there too.
We don’t know where he musters up the energy to keep going, belly-laughing all of the way through. All we know is with Nathan, he’ll Just Do It.
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