A glance back before looking ahead

Jan. 12, 2011

Sometimes I’m amazed to think about how far we’ve come. Today, the trips to school seem so long, the traffic is so slow all the while forgetting at this time last year, we were almost halfway through our daily 240 mile trips to Cincinnati and back for Nathan’s intensive therapy. Packing the car and leaving by 5:30a.m., the challenging road conditions and the unknown of what would come out of all this.

Some of the results were immediate, such as being more involved in rolling at gymnastics. Others we didn’t really see until later, like building the leg strength when he decided he would try to start walking. He still loves going down to the basement and grabbing his therabands and grunting as he “works” his arm muscles.

I came across the Leap Beyond Therapy shirt we received on the last day, and it’s still huge on him, but still not big enough to contain all the great things we got out of those three weeks. To look at him now, moving himself around the house in his walker, is a testament to what possibilities are out there for a little boy willing to try his best at whatever is thrown at him.

Wintertime brings with it challenges of finding ways for Nathan to use his abounding energy, especially with fewer places to go, and not playing outside. Instead, we try to make the most of being out at church or therapies or any other indoor facility. The past two weeks, instead of taking Nathan to speech in his pushchair, I’ve put him in his walker to see if he wanted to try something new.

Last week, our speech session overlapped with our botox appointment. We still needed to check-in with Kerrie as we have another rental device, but couldn’t transfer the pages on our own. It only took 5 minutes before we headed downstairs, but Nathan wasn’t ready to leave. He walked over to the door that leads to Kerrie’s office ready to get started. He looked at us, he looked at the door, he looked back, with a puzzled look as “why aren’t we going back.” For three years we’ve been working on him communicating but at that moment, his message was clear.

This week, he was looking pretty tired having just finished school, (where he spends at least 60-90 minutes each day in the walker.) I didn’t know what to expect. To my surprise, his feet started churning the moment they hit the pavement. Still helping him steer, I worried about him stopping and squatting in the middle of traffic, but alas there were very minimal pauses. He tried reaching for the elevator button as he saw it as a race and he was winning. He walked himself around the ramp, into the building, over to the elevator and down the hall to the speech offices. Once inside, he saw the office staff who talk to him and get him to smile. Nathan giggles and swaggered, as if saying, “Check me out, I’m doing it myself.”

Regretfully, as late as this posting is, I still haven’t gotten very far with the 2010 year-in-review video. I can’t complain too much as I’ve had freelance projects to work on (which means helping to pay the bills.) Annette was on-call last week and got called in 5 nights. I’m hoping we will all back on schedule and up-to speed soon. There may not be much time left to look back or else we’ll all spend all our time trying to catch-up with Nathan.

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