Brody watched the Notre Dame game with Daddy (kind of anyway). He was decked out in all his ND stuff. (We'll let Daddy have basketball since we know who the real football champions are :) Roll Tide!) Sunday night, Grammy and Papa Tom came down for dinner with Brody. Jordan made some Jumbalya. Yum!
Monday night we had Brody's Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP) meeting. If you are familiar with an IEP, the IFSP is for kids birth to 2 years old. In Kentucky, this is for when the child is in First Steps, the early intervention program. When they turn 3 they start school and change over to the IEP. While the IEP is good for a year, the IFSP is reviewed every 6 months. So we had Brody's initial one when he was 2 months old and then reviewed it and wrote another one. When we wrote his last plan we had Kathy, his service coordinator, and Paula, his teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing. He also got audiology services through it. Shortly after that meeting, we added Physical Therapy to it, Ms. Pat. Paula was seeing some delays that she wanted advice from a PT on. His goals were to respond to sound, to roll over, and to keep his head in midline (straight with his trunk). He met two of the three goals. Responding to sound is kind of impossible for him since, even with his hearing aids on, he would need it to be as loud as a chainsaw to hear it.
We wrote a new IFSP plan for him. He will continue to have physical therapy, audiology, and teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing. We also added some visits from a teacher of the vision impaired. Although his vision looks okay right now, the vision teacher can give us some pointers and resources. We have a good one in mind and hope to get her added as Brody's therapist! Paula will start working on having Brody respond to vibrations of sound (holding his hands on the tray when you bang, toys that vibrate and make sound). Pat will work on sitting for 10 minutes, transferring toys from hand to hand, and crawling. Hopefully in 6
months, he can master these goals too! Kids with hearing loss typically have motor delays. Kids with Usher's have greater delays. So far, Brody has only been about a month behind of schedule. He's a tough kiddo! :)
Today we met with Dr. Susan Wiley. She is a Developmental Pediatrician. We saw her at the medical plaza across from the downtown Cincinnati Children's. We didn't really know what to expect. Pretty much, she is a pediatrician for kids with special needs. In the waiting room were kids with autism, MMD (mild mental disabilities), and some that you could tell had disabilities, I'm just not sure what. Dr. Wiley was really good. There was a big bed that Brody laid on. She gave him some blocks and a cup to play with. He wasn't too interested in them. So she gave him a bell to play with. He worked for about 20 minutes trying to get the thing in the middle of the bell out. He he got bored with that he grabbed her stethoscope and entertained himself while we talked. She was trying to observe how he interacted with the different objects.
Dr. Wiley said there wasn't really anything she could tell us to do that we weren't already doing. She thought we had all the right people working with him already and was happy we were adding the vision teacher. She told us we could use her as a resource if we had any questions or concerns but she didn't feel Brody needed to come in on a regular basis.
The Cochlear Implant team will meet this afternoon and talk about his surgery. They should let us know soon, but from what they all are saying, we are good to go. We are hoping for a June 24 surgery date. His first birthday is on a Thursday and Aunt Sara's wedding is that Saturday. We are hoping for Monday so they can leave on their honeymoon. She doesn't want to be out of town with her baby in brain surgery :)
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