Dr. Appointments

It's been busy with Dr. appointments for Sara as well as changing therapy places. Here's the update:

March 11 2009:
Brachial Plexus clinic: Dr. Edgerton once again turned Sara upside down without a shirt on to see if she could bring her arms back in toward her (to see if she had latisimus muscles/how strong they were). Once again, for the third time, she was unable to do so. Rich and I joke that next time we will put a sign around her neck that says, "I have weak lats, please don't hold me upside down!" The orthopedic Dr. mentioned that he recently (the week prior) spoke to a lot of doctors at the Shriner's in Houston, TX. One of the doctors at the Houston Shriner's said that she'd done split tricep transfers for bicep function. It was noted that perhaps we'll visit her in the future, since I'm from TX and all. Her name escapes me, but Rich has it written down. Dr. Edgerton also suggested another Dr. who we could see in Fontana. He's out of Loma Linda University and apparently is a good resource. His name is Dr. Virgil Woods. A referral was made.

March 18, 2009:
Sara was again assessed for services through Harbor Regional Center. Once again, it does not appear that she will qualify because she does not have delays in cognition or speech, and CCS picks up kiddos for ortho only. I was so proud of her, to see how well she did on many of the assessments. She's so smart... I'm just concerned because I feel like she needs to receive therapy in a group setting-at church, she is scared of the kids who come up to her because she's been knocked down a couple times and obviously feels defenseless. At home she screams and gets mad instead of using her arms, but in other settings, she just gets really scared. I'm confident that we'll find some sort of group setting for her prior to 3, it probably just won't be funded.

She also started with her new therapist on this day. Sara appears to really like the new facility and her new therapist, so do I. This facility actually has a group setting, I found out. Though she may not qualify for the program (for it to be funded), she could, perhaps, attend as a peer model (funded by mom and dad). We'll see.

March 19, 2009
Went to Shriner's this morning and saw Dr. Lawrence, a hand surgeon. He spoke of devices used to help kiddos like Sara have active elbow flexion. Such devices don't really exist (as far as I know), but at one point they (a group of doctors? ot's?) were working on it, but never really came up with anything and it kind of got put on the back burner. Dr. Lawrence said he would speak to "them" to see about getting that idea going again. I thought it was a good idea and will be looking more in to it myself. My immediate reaction in my mind was "Surly Ryan (my almost 8-year-old son), can come up with something," that's right up his alley. Who knows, maybe he will invent something in the future for Sara to have elbow flexion without her having surgery. I have absolutely no doubt that he could do it-his mind amazes me.

April 2, 2009:
Appointment scheduled to see Dr. Woods as well as another hand surgeon in Fontana.

Whew, hopefully we'll get a good routine going again soon...never a dull moment!