Zach and Dad all dressed up for church (Zach loved it!)
A lot has happened lately! We have had a lot of fun, including a trip to the Wisconsin Dells to meet up with some adoption friends. Our wonderful friends, Dan and Nicole, brought home their daughter Simone at the same time we brought home Katie. They were buddies during our adoption trip and they are still buddies now. They are adorable together. Unfortunately, this trip also included a bout with asthma by Katie, which required a 10:00 p.m. trip to a wonderful Walgreens who kept the store open 10 minutes for Steve to buy a new nebulizer. Yes, Katie's nebulizer chose this moment to stop working! Katie was generally under the weather on Saturday, but we still managed to have fun.
We also met up with the family of Zach's friend Nina, who came to our hotel for dinner on Saturday. All of our girls had a great time with their friends, and Zach looked forward to his time with Nina, constantly asking from the time he awoke on Saturday if Nina was coming now?
As for swimming at the Great Wolf Lodge, let's just say it was a hit! Zach stayed in the water as long as possible, went down the mat races with his sisters, swam round and round in the lazy river, was flipped over on his tube in the wave pool, etc.
So here is a challenge question for you all:
-- if you didn't know the word for "flip-flops" (you know, those plastic shoes you wear in the summer -- some call them thongs), what would you choose to call them if you wanted to talk about them?
How about -- Swimming Pool Slippers? Sounds good to me! Zach really wanted some, as we prepared for our trip, and this is what he decided made the most sense to get this point across... (I have to admit I love it!)
Then, after the fun weekend, Zach had a "few" medical appointments! He started with a pediatric opthamologist. The result of this visit is a surgery scheduled on April 10 to detach and reattach his eye muscles. He has strabismus (crossing of the eye) and alternating esotropia (which means he uses each eye at different times). With the strabismus, he sees double. So, his brain has compensated for this by shutting down the vision to one eye at a time. He has good vision in each eye because he continues to use both, just not together. The surgery will hopefully get his eyes pointed in the same direction. There is a 20-25% chance that they will over or under correct during the surgery and, if so, he will need another surgery.
Interesting note: Zach apparently had surgery on his eyes in China. He knows what is going on, and is very excited about it! I think he realizes that it will help him.
After this visit, he met with a neurologist. She said she does not like the term "cerebral palsy" as it is a "garbage term" that many things get dumped into. So, she is calling his condition hemiplegia, which is basically that one side is weak. This doesn't change the diagnosis, really, since this is still a condition caused by damage to the brain at some point before or just after birth. Zach will still meet with a specialist in March to discuss options for gaining mobility and flexibility in his muscles. He was fitted for a brace that day and has since started using it. Again, he is excited about this because he recognizes that it is helping him walk and run!
She has scheduled an MRI on March 26 to determine whether he had a stroke in the womb or trauma that caused the damage, and the extent of the damage. We are not worried about cognitive damage, since he is continuing to do well in school. He has had three spelling tests at school now and has scored 100% on each! Go Zach!
Finally, he had a major teeth cleaning. He had a great deal of plaque and bacteria built up under his gums that needed to be scraped away. His breath is much more pleasant these days!
Through it all, he has been a trooper. He knows we are helping him. He knows these steps are necessary. It is a huge benefit that he understands this, since this will keep him from resenting wearing the brace, which he will be wearing all day, every day as soon as he becomes used to wearing it.
That's our news! I will try to keep you all informed at a much greater pace!
