Once again I am amazed at how much time has passed since I updated Travis' blog! Travis turned 4 years old on Dec. 4th, 2010. I am labeling this one by season since that seems to be as often as I get to write. :)
There were certainly a lot of transitions this fall for Travis with the ending of the Bridges program and not being enrolled in the public school's PPCD program this year. I think it was the right decision as Travis is really progressing, and his therapists thought he was likely to learn just as many negative behaviors at the new school as positive ones. It does seem that his therapy program is very "light" this year though. We are doing only 3 hours of private therapy per week, in addition to 2 hippotherapy sessions per week. He is doing fairly well in his "mother's day out" program with typical kids 2 mornings per week, although sometimes he has difficulties there and just Friday spent much of the day in time out and had to go to the director's office! That said, most of the time he does fine with the others. We are also doing gym classes with typical kids twice per week to give him a little more support physically as we had to drop his occupational therapy in January. Things are definitely coming along, most notably that some of the GI issues are finally abating and we are making good progress on the potty training front. This summer we will scale back on the private therapy and try a few day "camps" to test the waters with new surroundings and people. At least one of them will be for kids with special needs but some others will not, and that should give us a good idea of how much progress he's really made before figuring out next year's therapy schedule. I'm being optimistic and registering him for typical preschool 4 1/2 days per week for next year, hoping that he will be ready for that by the end of summer. Still taking it one day at a time...
As always, so grateful for all your well wishes and thoughts you keep sending our way. Much love and appreciation for all of you, and hoping all is well for your families and friends.
Fund Raising For Travis
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Friday, August 20, 2010
Summer update
Once again, I'm amazed at how much time has passed since I wrote the last update! I just re-read the post for May and have to laugh thinking that I thought things would calm down in the summer. Ha!
We had a nice trip to our friends horse ranch in AK, although of course it was disappointing to have our "family" vacation without Jeff there! But it was mission accomplished as when we got back Travis started his therapeutic riding the following week without a hitch. He went weekly for the summer session (7 weeks) without a problem, but after a 3 week break before fall session started last Saturday, it was a little more difficult getting back to it. We spent the first 30 minutes of the 45 minute session trying to convince him to get up on the horse. But he did ride for the last 15 minutes so hopefully this week he'll remember and be ready to go. His horse is named Spirit and during the summer he really did enjoy riding. The instructor has them do many different therapeutic tasks: red light/green light games, treasure hunts where they have to reach down to grab things to put in their bags, even doing a puzzle while riding backwards on the horse. It's very interesting to watch as some of the kids who don't have a lot of gross motor control really respond to the horses - you can just see their whole bodies relax.
Unfortunately, we had 2 disappointing events this summer. Most importantly, the Children's Hospital that runs Travis' therapy program decided to shut the program down in mid-Sept. due to "budget cuts". And the PPCD program that he attended at our local elementary school was also pulled from our school for the same reason. The public school system has rezoned him to another school much farther away, so he can still attend at a new location and with new staff and peers. But it will definitely be a transition. Right now we're still looking into alternatives for the therapy program. Doing the therapies individually privately is much too expensive (the tuition we paid for the hospital program for 40+ hrs therapy/month would buy us only 5 hours of private therapy/month!) But the hospital is willing to let a private school in Houston use the same space to offer a half-time school program, and if there are enough parents interested this could be an option for us. Since we received a good amount of tuition assistance through the hospital, it would more than double what we're paying now, but at least it would be for the same number of hours per month as what he's getting now. I will be observing at the school this week to see how their academic program looks, and we will know if there are enough interested parents by the end of this month.
Needless to say, Travis is going to have a lot of transitions over the next 6 weeks or so. He will try attending Julia's preschool for typical kids 2 mornings per week as well. Hopefully by the next update, I'll be able to report on how things have worked out and that at least he's adjusting well to however his schedule looks. Keep fingers crossed for us!
We had a nice trip to our friends horse ranch in AK, although of course it was disappointing to have our "family" vacation without Jeff there! But it was mission accomplished as when we got back Travis started his therapeutic riding the following week without a hitch. He went weekly for the summer session (7 weeks) without a problem, but after a 3 week break before fall session started last Saturday, it was a little more difficult getting back to it. We spent the first 30 minutes of the 45 minute session trying to convince him to get up on the horse. But he did ride for the last 15 minutes so hopefully this week he'll remember and be ready to go. His horse is named Spirit and during the summer he really did enjoy riding. The instructor has them do many different therapeutic tasks: red light/green light games, treasure hunts where they have to reach down to grab things to put in their bags, even doing a puzzle while riding backwards on the horse. It's very interesting to watch as some of the kids who don't have a lot of gross motor control really respond to the horses - you can just see their whole bodies relax.
Unfortunately, we had 2 disappointing events this summer. Most importantly, the Children's Hospital that runs Travis' therapy program decided to shut the program down in mid-Sept. due to "budget cuts". And the PPCD program that he attended at our local elementary school was also pulled from our school for the same reason. The public school system has rezoned him to another school much farther away, so he can still attend at a new location and with new staff and peers. But it will definitely be a transition. Right now we're still looking into alternatives for the therapy program. Doing the therapies individually privately is much too expensive (the tuition we paid for the hospital program for 40+ hrs therapy/month would buy us only 5 hours of private therapy/month!) But the hospital is willing to let a private school in Houston use the same space to offer a half-time school program, and if there are enough parents interested this could be an option for us. Since we received a good amount of tuition assistance through the hospital, it would more than double what we're paying now, but at least it would be for the same number of hours per month as what he's getting now. I will be observing at the school this week to see how their academic program looks, and we will know if there are enough interested parents by the end of this month.
Needless to say, Travis is going to have a lot of transitions over the next 6 weeks or so. He will try attending Julia's preschool for typical kids 2 mornings per week as well. Hopefully by the next update, I'll be able to report on how things have worked out and that at least he's adjusting well to however his schedule looks. Keep fingers crossed for us!
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
May update
I can hardly believe that almost 4 months have passed since I've had a chance to write an update on Travis! Things have been quite hectic all along, but most recently Jeff has been working non-stop since the oil rig explosion (his company flies BP) and I've been struggling just to make it as a "single parent". All vacations are on hold at his job which is unfortunate because we are going to a horse ranch in Arkansas next week for Travis to - hopefully - get some experience on the horses which are very gentle and can work with kids with special needs. We have some very kind and gracious friends who offered to let us stay there for an entire week free, and we arranged it last September to be the first week in June which is when Travis' program at the Children's Hospital is on break. So we are going without Jeff... thankfully Nana and Papa are going too so I will have some help! It is about a 12 hour drive and I believe the closest big grocery store is a couple of hours away so it should definitely be an experience.
Overall, spring has been good and Travis is doing well. He's made lots of progress with speech (4-6 word sentences!) and being more interactive over the last few months. He also is much better with going to new places and meeting new people. The only thing that doesn't seem to be coming along too well is the physical improvements with his GI tract. Despite being on a strict special diet for 18 months, and a ton of different supplements and more recently different drugs, based on the stool and urine tests he isn't making much progress with getting rid of all the yeast overgrowth in his gut along with several pathogenic bacterial infections and imbalances. At 3 1/2 years old he's still not had normal stool, and this is a bit distressing since we hope (someday) to be potty trained. We started with a new MD a few months ago and I'm hoping we get some better results soon. But, on the bright side, his behavior has overall been pretty steady so that's something to be grateful for.
On the Son-Rise (home program) front, we had a great experience in April when we had a consultant from the east coast come for 3 days to work with Travis and help us improve our program. Over that time she worked one-on-one with Travis in his playroom for about 9-10 hrs, observed each of us work with Travis and gave us feedback on improving our techniques, ran a group meeting for us, and even did a session with Travis and Julia in the playroom together. It was great to see how well he did with her in the room (she certainly was very skilled and got wonderful responses, eye contact, and flexibility from him) but even more exciting was to hear from her how well he's doing. We track his progress on the Son-Rise "developmental model" but we're never sure if we're accurate in our assessment, and it was great to have her professional opinion about where he's at, which was even farther along than we had thought. It also made me feel more relaxed about the various approaches we're taking (home program, TX Children's Hospital, PPCD in the public school, diet, supplements, etc) since it seems to be is working for him. Since progress is always so much slower than we would like, I can't help but wonder sometimes if we should be doing more or less of some things, and it was really nice to have some reassurance.
Well, I think that covers most of what's been happening on our end. Julia had her last day at preschool today and the public school PPCD class will end for Travis next week, so summer should be a little more relaxed with only Travis' TX Children's program to attend. Both kids will do swim lessons this summer, and Travis finally got a slot at the local hippotherapy program (after almost a year on the waiting list) so he will start riding a horse just a week after we get back from the horse ranch. Talk about perfect timing! Hopefully he'll have a good experience on our trip and be excited about riding a horse when he gets back.
I'll look forward to updating more soon!
Overall, spring has been good and Travis is doing well. He's made lots of progress with speech (4-6 word sentences!) and being more interactive over the last few months. He also is much better with going to new places and meeting new people. The only thing that doesn't seem to be coming along too well is the physical improvements with his GI tract. Despite being on a strict special diet for 18 months, and a ton of different supplements and more recently different drugs, based on the stool and urine tests he isn't making much progress with getting rid of all the yeast overgrowth in his gut along with several pathogenic bacterial infections and imbalances. At 3 1/2 years old he's still not had normal stool, and this is a bit distressing since we hope (someday) to be potty trained. We started with a new MD a few months ago and I'm hoping we get some better results soon. But, on the bright side, his behavior has overall been pretty steady so that's something to be grateful for.
On the Son-Rise (home program) front, we had a great experience in April when we had a consultant from the east coast come for 3 days to work with Travis and help us improve our program. Over that time she worked one-on-one with Travis in his playroom for about 9-10 hrs, observed each of us work with Travis and gave us feedback on improving our techniques, ran a group meeting for us, and even did a session with Travis and Julia in the playroom together. It was great to see how well he did with her in the room (she certainly was very skilled and got wonderful responses, eye contact, and flexibility from him) but even more exciting was to hear from her how well he's doing. We track his progress on the Son-Rise "developmental model" but we're never sure if we're accurate in our assessment, and it was great to have her professional opinion about where he's at, which was even farther along than we had thought. It also made me feel more relaxed about the various approaches we're taking (home program, TX Children's Hospital, PPCD in the public school, diet, supplements, etc) since it seems to be is working for him. Since progress is always so much slower than we would like, I can't help but wonder sometimes if we should be doing more or less of some things, and it was really nice to have some reassurance.
Well, I think that covers most of what's been happening on our end. Julia had her last day at preschool today and the public school PPCD class will end for Travis next week, so summer should be a little more relaxed with only Travis' TX Children's program to attend. Both kids will do swim lessons this summer, and Travis finally got a slot at the local hippotherapy program (after almost a year on the waiting list) so he will start riding a horse just a week after we get back from the horse ranch. Talk about perfect timing! Hopefully he'll have a good experience on our trip and be excited about riding a horse when he gets back.
I'll look forward to updating more soon!
Monday, February 1, 2010
Jan/Feb update
Hope all of you are having a wonderful start to 2010! We are still getting settled but at least all of the unpacked boxes are now located in the garage and not the house. :) It has been a busy first month of the new year with lots of changes for Travis (and all of us):
First, Travis settled into the new house very well. The first couple weeks there were some tantrums for wanting to go back to the old house (which, ironically, he was calling the "new house") but after a little while he's gotten used to it and especially likes his new room, which has Thomas the train in it. The rest of us are getting used to the new place too - Julia loves her "princess fairy" room and Mommy and Daddy are slowly getting adjusted. Although this is my 9th move since graduating college it's the first one since having kids and seems exponentially more difficult...!
Travis settled back into his program at TX Children's quite easily after the holiday break. This was a relief since his main therapist went out on maternity leave and we weren't sure how much he would miss her. But his other therapists stayed the same and he already knew his "substitute" so it went quite smoothly.
He also started the PPCD program at our local elementary school 3 afternoons per week and seems to like it. He gets to take the school bus home all 3 days and to school as well one day per week (the other 2 days I drive him since he goes straight from his hospital program Bridges). Needless to say riding on the school bus is the most exciting part!
The only thing left to get going again is the home program, which has been lagging a bit between the holidays and moving. Now that we're more settled (and mostly unpacked) we'll be focusing on ramping up again in our new space. Also a new doctor to see this month. Hopefully we'll get some good feedback on Travis' progress with the diet/supplement regimen Travis has been on for the last year.
Thanks to everyone for all the good wishes in our new space and holiday cheer!
First, Travis settled into the new house very well. The first couple weeks there were some tantrums for wanting to go back to the old house (which, ironically, he was calling the "new house") but after a little while he's gotten used to it and especially likes his new room, which has Thomas the train in it. The rest of us are getting used to the new place too - Julia loves her "princess fairy" room and Mommy and Daddy are slowly getting adjusted. Although this is my 9th move since graduating college it's the first one since having kids and seems exponentially more difficult...!
Travis settled back into his program at TX Children's quite easily after the holiday break. This was a relief since his main therapist went out on maternity leave and we weren't sure how much he would miss her. But his other therapists stayed the same and he already knew his "substitute" so it went quite smoothly.
He also started the PPCD program at our local elementary school 3 afternoons per week and seems to like it. He gets to take the school bus home all 3 days and to school as well one day per week (the other 2 days I drive him since he goes straight from his hospital program Bridges). Needless to say riding on the school bus is the most exciting part!
The only thing left to get going again is the home program, which has been lagging a bit between the holidays and moving. Now that we're more settled (and mostly unpacked) we'll be focusing on ramping up again in our new space. Also a new doctor to see this month. Hopefully we'll get some good feedback on Travis' progress with the diet/supplement regimen Travis has been on for the last year.
Thanks to everyone for all the good wishes in our new space and holiday cheer!
Friday, December 18, 2009
Happy Holidays!
Hope you are having a wonderful holiday season!
We're busier than usual this year as we sold our house and closed on a new one today. We'll be moving the 23rd so holiday activities will probably be overshadowed by packing and unpacking this year... but we don't have to be fully out of our house until the 28th so we have some flexibility.
The Son-Rise training program I went to last month (called New Frontiers) was wonderful and our TV room in the new house will be able to double as Travis' playroom for doing therapy which will be great. He also will start preschool next month so there will be a lot of transitions for him to adjust to.
Wish us luck - will look forward to updating on everything next month!
We're busier than usual this year as we sold our house and closed on a new one today. We'll be moving the 23rd so holiday activities will probably be overshadowed by packing and unpacking this year... but we don't have to be fully out of our house until the 28th so we have some flexibility.
The Son-Rise training program I went to last month (called New Frontiers) was wonderful and our TV room in the new house will be able to double as Travis' playroom for doing therapy which will be great. He also will start preschool next month so there will be a lot of transitions for him to adjust to.
Wish us luck - will look forward to updating on everything next month!
Sunday, November 8, 2009
November update - lots to report!
Hi all! Hope this update finds you well. We've had a busy couple months with some changes, the biggest of which is that we decided to put our house on the market to sell or lease. Since I am still out of work and Travis' medical costs keep coming it seems like the logical thing to do. The good news is that Travis is still making great progress and this is VERY motivating for us to keep all the outside interventions going as long as possible! We've already had a few showings and are hoping things will move quickly, but if it takes awhile the silver lining is that we get to stay here longer as we do love this house and will be a little sad to leave. It's definitely a challenge to keep the house "ready to show" with an almost-3 and 4 year old in it!
Happily, I have some great examples to report of the progress Travis has been making lately. First, his speech is really improving, with much better articulation and new words, as well as 3 word phrases ("I want ___"). Second, he is starting to play with Julia for several minutes a time without any outside support (this is actually an accomplishment for both of them!) It seems like very 'typical' sibling interactions - i.e. more times than not leading to crying and fighting - but this is a very good sign about the potential for his social skills to expand to others in the future. Third, he started taking swimming lessons and is doing great. A physical therapist had recommended aquatherapy for him and we decided to see if he could handle regular swim lessons first (MUCH cheaper, more convenient, and also he can learn to swim!) and after just a few sessions getting used to going with the instructor by himself he is loving it. Hooray!
Other highlights this month include dressing up for Halloween to attend his "school" party and going trick or treating around the neighborhood , and also playing the game "1,2,3, poke!" which allows me to give him his B-12 injections while he is fully awake instead of having to do them late at night while he is sleeping. A great convenience.
Travis was also evaluated this month for transition to the public school system next month, after our state early intervention services will end on his third birthday. We've just started the process but it looks like they will recommend that he attend an afternoon preschool class at our local elementary school for kids with special needs (PPCD). So we'll see how it goes and probably give it a try if it looks like it could be beneficial.
The other exciting news this month is that I'm getting ready to attend the third Son-Rise training at the Autism Institute of America next week, called New Frontiers. This course focuses on developing and updating the curriculum for your child's program as he progresses. I know that I will learn a lot based on the first two trainings and also get a mental/energy/emotional boost from interacting with the other parents there who have kids with autism and are doing the Son-Rise program, so I'm really looking forward to it.
I'm sure I will have much to report next month too with the holidays coming and all these changes going on... have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!
Happily, I have some great examples to report of the progress Travis has been making lately. First, his speech is really improving, with much better articulation and new words, as well as 3 word phrases ("I want ___"). Second, he is starting to play with Julia for several minutes a time without any outside support (this is actually an accomplishment for both of them!) It seems like very 'typical' sibling interactions - i.e. more times than not leading to crying and fighting - but this is a very good sign about the potential for his social skills to expand to others in the future. Third, he started taking swimming lessons and is doing great. A physical therapist had recommended aquatherapy for him and we decided to see if he could handle regular swim lessons first (MUCH cheaper, more convenient, and also he can learn to swim!) and after just a few sessions getting used to going with the instructor by himself he is loving it. Hooray!
Other highlights this month include dressing up for Halloween to attend his "school" party and going trick or treating around the neighborhood , and also playing the game "1,2,3, poke!" which allows me to give him his B-12 injections while he is fully awake instead of having to do them late at night while he is sleeping. A great convenience.
Travis was also evaluated this month for transition to the public school system next month, after our state early intervention services will end on his third birthday. We've just started the process but it looks like they will recommend that he attend an afternoon preschool class at our local elementary school for kids with special needs (PPCD). So we'll see how it goes and probably give it a try if it looks like it could be beneficial.
The other exciting news this month is that I'm getting ready to attend the third Son-Rise training at the Autism Institute of America next week, called New Frontiers. This course focuses on developing and updating the curriculum for your child's program as he progresses. I know that I will learn a lot based on the first two trainings and also get a mental/energy/emotional boost from interacting with the other parents there who have kids with autism and are doing the Son-Rise program, so I'm really looking forward to it.
I'm sure I will have much to report next month too with the holidays coming and all these changes going on... have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Sept update
Hope everyone is having a great start to the school year!
Ours was short-lived as we were all home with the flu this week. Julia hasn't actually had a full week of school yet! But hopefully all will be back to normal next week. Travis has a new doctor (autism specialist) to help with the biomedical/dietary interventions and it was nice to hear that she felt we were on the right track, given that it's been a year now that we've been working on his diet and supplementation. He also started some listening therapy which he does at his therapy program/school and also at home, twice a day for 20 minutes. Now that he's used to wearing the headphones (they are very bulky and cumbersome) he's getting much better at listening.
We also had an amazing offer from some friends who have a horse ranch in Arkansas. Travis is currently on a waiting list for horse therapy (maybe you've seen or read "The Horse Boy"?) and they are starting a hippotherapy (horse therapy) program for autistic kids on their ranch and offered to sponsor us to come stay there for free! It is just incredible. We are going to take them up on it at the end of May/first week of June next year during one of Travis' breaks from TX Children's. Since we didn't travel at all this summer (partly due to Travis but also since I'm still out of work) it will be really nice to look forward to a nice family vacation next summer!
Hope all of yours was great and you're happy that we're moving into fall...
Ours was short-lived as we were all home with the flu this week. Julia hasn't actually had a full week of school yet! But hopefully all will be back to normal next week. Travis has a new doctor (autism specialist) to help with the biomedical/dietary interventions and it was nice to hear that she felt we were on the right track, given that it's been a year now that we've been working on his diet and supplementation. He also started some listening therapy which he does at his therapy program/school and also at home, twice a day for 20 minutes. Now that he's used to wearing the headphones (they are very bulky and cumbersome) he's getting much better at listening.
We also had an amazing offer from some friends who have a horse ranch in Arkansas. Travis is currently on a waiting list for horse therapy (maybe you've seen or read "The Horse Boy"?) and they are starting a hippotherapy (horse therapy) program for autistic kids on their ranch and offered to sponsor us to come stay there for free! It is just incredible. We are going to take them up on it at the end of May/first week of June next year during one of Travis' breaks from TX Children's. Since we didn't travel at all this summer (partly due to Travis but also since I'm still out of work) it will be really nice to look forward to a nice family vacation next summer!
Hope all of yours was great and you're happy that we're moving into fall...
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