Five-Seven
Anna's Pictures
Anna's Pictures, Part 2
Birth-One
One-Two
Two-Three
Three-Four
Anna never ate more than 2-3 ounces of milk at a time and the docs suspected reflux and put her on an acid reducer. 3 months later still no change and now she wasn't meeting milestones. Her tone was low and floppy, she wasn't rolling over, sitting up, or crawling and still not eating well or sleeping well. My husband's side of the family has a history of eye problems, so we saw an ophthamologist. Sure enough, Anna was severly myopic (prescription was -7 and is now -7.5). Within weeks of getting her glasses at 11 months, she was crawling, so we thought her problems were due to her poor vision.
We started OT around that time. She sat around 12 months by pushing up on her hands and knees, then pushing back up into a W. She walked at 15.5 months, but she was weak. Her left foot turned in badly when she was tired and she fell a lot. Her whole left side was weak--she held her left shoulder lower than the right.They did an MRI in August 2002, supsecting ataxic CP and that came back normal. We had orthopedic eval for possible orthotics, but the docs didn't fell orthotics were necessary. Anna's ankles pronated, but have stabilized. At the age of 2, her fine motor and gross motor were assessed at 18-22 months with some scattering. At the age of 4, Anna could walk run, jump, and pedal a tricycle. At age 6, she can write her name, draw a circle, and is starting to draw pictures.
Communication and socialization have been her biggest challenges. We started speech therapy at 15 months. At the age of of 18 months, she had no real words, but knew 3-4 signs. At the age of 2, she said mama, dada, nana, bau (for ball), "p" (for up), and wassat. She knew nearly 25 signs, though most are so modified I would have to interpret for those who know ASL. She was assessed at 14-16 months for expressive speech and 17-21 months for receptive language. At the age of 27 months, Anna had 15 words and 40 signs. At the age of 4, she had over 150 signs and speaks in sentences. Now at 6, she speaks well, but articulation, verb tense, and pronouns are issues. Her delays range from 6 months to 2 years behind. Anna's temperament used to be very easygoing most of the time. She loves music and water (even puddles of water on the ground). She is very affectionate and will give hugs and kisses abundantly, even to strangers. Everyone tells us how sweet she is. The one thing that really upsets her is if another child or baby shrieks, cries, or is loud; Anna gets really frightened and will cry inconsolably. After getting 2.5 years of SIOT, her coping has really improved. We now have trouble with impulse control and attention span. She is very delayed socially and has PDD-NOS. She also had mood swings and problems with anxiety. Risperdal has helped conrol her rages.
Now for the feeding issues... Anna has never eaten much solid food. On average, she used to get about 25-40% of her daily calories from solid food. She has a few sensory issues with her mouth (like stuffing--not knowing when her mouth is full and also temperature), but we have been desensitizing her successfully. It seems to be more a quantity thing... she used to eat 2 bites of apple and cereal, gave us the "all done" sign, then start throwing food on the floor. We weaned Anna from the bottle at the age of 2, but supplemented with Pediasure until age 4 to ensure her nutritional needs were met. Age the age of 6, her appetite is better due to being on Risperdal. She struggles with constipation and takes Miralax..
When she was still on the bottle, Anna's sleep pattern was very irregular. She would awake anywhere from 1-4 times a night (2 was average). Since weaning, she used to sleep through the night most of the time, though she would still cry out in her sleep 1-2 times a night. Since she started having seizures, she is having a very hard time with insomnia and wakefulness in the night. She sleeps with me now. A sleep study in 2005 showed numerous sleep problems.
At the age of 3.5, Anna was diagnosed with epilepsy after having 3 tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizures in the space of 18 hours with a viral illness. She started on the anti-seizure medicine, Trileptal. After more seizures and another hospitalization, we switched to Lamictal for 15 months, then tried Keppra and Depakote. Her seizures are infrequent and she is not currently taking any AEDs.