The Trials and Tribulations of Torticollis

Yesterday Cam and I left the house at 7:45am and headed over to Blank Children's Hospital in Des Moines to get a second opinion on his torticollis from a pediatric physical therapist there. Our appt. was at 9am, we didn't get in there until 9:15am, and we didn't get out until 10:50am. I learned quite a bit in that time. The first thing is that she classified him as low-tone--meaning he has low muscle tone. It is something called hypotonia, though she said there is a wide range of it and he is in the normal range. It is something pretty common among preterm babies and basically it just means that he will eventually hit all of his developmental milestones but will probably be a little delayed because it will all be a little harder for him to do. The good thing is that by the time he's 2 years old he should be caught up and you will never know he had a problem. However, for the next few months we are going to have to do a lot of work with him.

We have been working with a physical therapist here in town but she is not a pediatric one. I really like her and think she's been doing a great job but the PPT thinks that she has been focusing more on stretching, whereas she feels we should focus more on strengthening. She said that if we continue to go to the PT in town he would eventually get better but it would probably just take a little longer. She feels that rather than twice-a-week stretching sessions we should do once-a-week strengthening sessions. She said that we could start seeing her or that she could work with the PT over here and kind of coach her through the correct exercises. Cody and I talked it over last night and though we really like our PT we just feel that we need to do the absolute best thing for Cameron and start going to the pediatric PT. After all, she sees cases like this all day long and we just feel that she is best qualified to help both Cameron and us. She showed us a lot of new exercises to do with him and set us up for our first appt. on Tuesday. It was all pretty overwhelming and a lot of stuff to learn all at once but I think we can get the hang of it and hopefully get a lot of exercises in throughout the day. I have also been concerned about the shape of his head but she reassured me and said that it really isn't that bad and that there is plenty of time for it to go back to a more natural shape.

After we were done there we waited for Cody to bring Owen over (so he could head back to work) and then myself and the boys headed to Cameron's dr. appt. I scheduled a follow-up last week to check the status of his ear infections. I am so glad I did because as it turns out, they are still infected and he had to be put on a stronger anti-biotic for another 10 days. Hopefully that will clear it up and we can finally get this child well! We go back for his 4 mo. well-check and Owen's 3 year well-check next week so she will check to see if it's cleared then. Like I said before, my life is just a series of doctor's appointments!

We finally made it home at 2pm and we were exhausted. Cam was so tired he slept from 8:30pm to 6:30am!! Woo-hoo! That's his longest time yet! Ah, I long for the days of a full-night's rest again. :)

I do think sitting in that waiting room yesterday was good for me. I have been so worried and stressed out over all that we've been through with Cameron. But after seeing all those children come in and out with problems much worse than ours, I am so thankful that at least what we are dealing with can be fixed. It is stressful but it's nothing like what those families are going through. Though the biggest lesson I learned was that even though they all had so many difficult things they were dealing with, every child still had a smile on his/her face and still made their parents smile. They helped me see that happiness is not defined by what you don't have but what you do have. And I have a wonderful husband, two great kids, and a pretty great life. So I will take what I learned from those sweet little children and smile my way through all of this.