Bode Does Dallas

We've--that is--Bode and i have just returned from a weekend away in Dallas. A fun weekend, just the two of us. An exhausting weekend. A very successful, good-newsy weekend.

The point of the trip was to take him to be reevaluated by Donna Bateman, the child/neurodevelopmental specialist who prescribed all of the OT programs we've been working on. Bode has made so much progress in the past 5 months that i needed some guidance and his programs needed tweaking, so the only way to really accomplish that was for her to see him again.

And i have to say this. We were told by her in the beginning that oftentimes, people don't see improvements until 6 months and certainly not marked improvements. So i knew we were doing well. But i needed her to see him.

B and i flew in Thursday night and stayed with Kristen's mom, L. This was a fantastic place for my sweet child. Their backyard is a paradise of live oaks and water. Ducks to feed. Acorns to throw. Flowers to pick. So very lovely. We slept well.

Friday morning Donna came to us for the eval. I managed to not get two very important pictures--one of her with Bode and one of Kristen's mom with Bode. She took Bode under her wing as his surrogate grandma for the weekend. Everyone needs a surrogate grandma so he was very lucky...In the mornings i'd find him out back with L feeding the ducks. He'd tell her about the dreams he'd had. He was instantly comfortable and easy around her.

The eval went well. Bode was pretty burned out by the time it was done. Meaning he was getting ornery and cranky. Can't really blame him. All in all he participated and played along well. We're talking a 2+ hour eval needing his full cooperation. Was wanting to feed the ducks really too much to ask on his part?

After the eval we had a celebratory lunch at, of all places, McDonalds. I don't know that he'd ever eaten there before (oh yes. He's that pure. HA! Actually we are snobs and stick to more upscale places like KFC and Sonic). He was pretty psyched by the happy meal toy and the apple slices with caramel option.

We headed back to L's to meet back up with Donna. While we ate lunch, she'd gone home and written out his eval and programs. When she walked in the house she looked at me and said, "Nobody should get to have as much fun as i'm about to have!" We sat down and she pulled out his "Integrative and Developmental Chart" that she uses to map out his neurological functioning. (You can see the charts here. Scroll down to the PDFs). Ours is a tri-fold paper that goes from birth to chronological age). This chart maps out the brain levels, developmental periods and brain functions that should be on-board by certain ages. She goes through and evaluates a child taking note of whether or not he's achieved each brain function in each brain level and takes points off if it's not at all achieved, partially achieved or nearly achieved. She compares the child's chronological age with what she comes up with as their neurological age and there's this whole formula that gives his degree of injury (or brain disorganization) and more. Anyway. I didn't document well B's first eval. I was so busy getting-going on the programs! But his chronological age at the time was 51.5 months. He mapped out neurologically to just 31.5 months, giving him a degree of injury/disorganization of 61% which is considered moderate (0-20% is profound, 21-60% is severe, 61-85% is moderate and 86-99% mild). His main issues were in the midbrain, especially things like recognizing and appreciating voice inflection, locating the source of sounds, feeling meaningful sensations, showing interest in his environment and exploring it; etc. These things should be "on-board" by 8 months (per lots of accepted and recognized brain research). And maybe these things sound inconsequential, but if they don't function well, then as time goes on it just compounds into more problems all pointing back to the midbrain (i.e. recognizing link between behaviors and consequences, feel remorse and pride, make good eye contact, express wide range of emotions appropriately, voluntarily tell a meaningful, organized story, follow a basic three-step command). Anyway.

So we sat and she spread open the chart and i saw on the bottom something really beautiful. Chronological age: 56.5 months. Neurological age: 54.2 months! His degree of injury/disorganization? 96% or mild! (Donna said she was really tempted to put a "very" in front of the mild!). She calculated a rate of growth of 454%! In just 5 months! She said in all of her years personally evaluating children and in all of the data input of the children at the Family Hope Center that she's done (thousands), she's never seen a rate of growth like that.

He's worked so hard and we've all worked so hard as a family that seeing those numbers was incredibly gratifying. I knew he was on his way to "well." I knew he'd made huge strides. But seeing it on paper and hearing it from Donna was a wonderful feeling.

She gave us a game plan to continue. She made some changes to his current programs. She guesstimates another six months on the programs. They should give continued improvement and they should really "stick." I'm so ready to be done with them. Especially the creeping and crawling which can create some serious contention in our house. But talking to her about our issues and seeing this improvement in black-and-white strengthens my resolve to continue (at least today. We haven't restarted it yet!). It needs to stick. I would hate to go this far and have him backslide as he did with OT. I can do another 6 months. He can do another six months. And then to be 5 and well? And avoid lots of other problems he probably would have had had we continued with the downslides? Beautiful. So Very Worth it. I can't believe i didn't snap a picture of her with him.

Friday night we met my brother Drew for dinner. He lives in downtown Dallas and it's always so good to see him. Bode loves him. Then we spent most of the day Saturday with him at the Texas State Fair. Talk about sensory overload, that place! We went on a couple rides. Ate some junk food. Watched a dog show (the Frisbee-catching type). Saw some livestock. Checked out some John Deere tractors. Checked out Big Tex himself. Took the bus (an attraction in and of itself) back to downtown where we could walk back to Drew's. And we hightailed it out of there because Texas was playing OU at the Cotton Bowl (on the very fairgrounds we were at) and i didn't want to get caught in the post-game traffic. Bode lamented the fact that Uncle Drew doesn't live with us. He now wants to live in Texas, too. He's not too picky. Utah or Texas. Two places we will never live. I keep telling him to be happy living in Colorado. I think it's been hard for him to have so many friends continually move. And two more are moving before the year's end. Seriously.
After playing on a little play area at the local mall and some dinner, we went back to L's to settle in and feed some ducks. I got him to bed by 7 and he was OUT.

We flew home this morning and were happily reunited with Doug and Keegen (oh how i will always remember Keegen's face as he ran and jumped into my arms yelling "MOMMY!" at the airport!).

It was a great weekend. For obvious reasons and for the opportunity to spend significant time with Bode one-on-one. We haven't done that for a long time.