Walking & Talking

Miss K has been in PT for 9 months now and has come a long ways since July of last year.  She was super unsteady then and while she is still unsteady now, she gets around quite well with her walker and not bad without. Of course she still crawls a lot, but she's also on her feet more often now. I encourage her to walk whenever possible so that she continues to build the strength in her legs and ankles. She's able to walk across the room now without her walker, she will go from couch to couch, couch to door etc, wherever she can let go and try she does.  She's also recently learned how to push herself up from the ground to squatting to standing, YAY! That's a huge milestone and accomplishment for her.  Her PT was so happy with that this week. We have some more fun exercises to work on with her to continue her doing that and to gain more steadiness. 

 

Here is my K pushing herself up, she's getting better at it every time :)

Her speech  is progressing as well.  At her evaluation they had her at about 14 months, which was about 2 months ago. We've been working on getting her to talk more and repeat words, which she actually does most of the time for us, not so much for the ST lol . K is really shy, especially around new people, so she doesn't do as much for her as us.  I should record it and show them, so they believe me when I say she does these things.  In the last month I've taught her to sign "open" and "yes" as she always just grunted and pointed and then would get excited for "yes".  She's saying yes and signing it now, so yay for that. She also is using "open" more now, and tries to say it, but it's not quite right.  I know we're on the right track, so we keep working and pushing her.  She's also warming up to the ST and that will help as time goes. 

We head back to UAB on the 11th for her Spina Bifida Clinic, while I am anxious to get it done since we can go forward with getting her new braces, I am worried too.  She has to get the urodynamics testing done again and I hope they say there has been some improvement with her bladder since she has been on her meds.  Thankfully none of the testing that day require any sedation, just some renal ultrasound, xray and urodynamics and that's it. Of course it'll still be a long day, all the testing done in the morning and then after lunch we start our rotation of doctors coming in and out. 

Will keep everyone posted on the results when we find out. :) 

Fish watching at the Tn Aquarium

We're also participating in the SB Bowl-A-Thon this year, you can donate in honor of Kaitlyn by going to this link