Friday, May 10, 2013

Surgery, Swinging & Shopping


At our last ophthalmology appointment, the doctor said that it was time to do surgery on Connor’s eye.  Since last July his left eye has been drifting in when he looks right.  It’s bad enough that his pupil completely disappears and it’s preventing proper vision development. This is a different surgery than he had on his eye at 7 weeks, this one will involve his eye muscle.  It’s scheduled for May 24 at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  If all goes well with the surgery and Connor coming out of anesthesia, he won’t need to spend the night.  Prayers and well wishes are welcomed starting now!

In happier news, Connor is progressing nicely in his feeding.  Maybe the Speech Pathologist that started a few weeks ago has the magical touch or maybe the homemade food is really helping or maybe he was just ready to turn the corner, whatever the reason, we’ll take it!  His strange sucking tongue pattern is almost gone, he usually has good lip closure and sometimes even opens his mouth when he’s ready for another bite!  He still has a long way to go, but it’s nice to have some progress in this area.

The Speech Pathologist works with feeding, but also with communication.  Right now, Connor has one word – more.  It’s actually comes out “mo”, but there’s no misinterpreting what he’s saying.  He’s said “book” a few times and said “ma” the other day when I picked him up from the sitters.  While he can’t verbalize a whole lot, we know he understands quite a bit.  He knows our names and certain objects, he follows certain commands (the biggest deal right now is that his hands are constantly in his mouth, so “hands down” is our mantra with him), he looks to the window when we say “bus” (he sits there every morning and watches the school buses go by) and a host of other things to let us know he’s paying attention.  So hopefully we can develop a mechanism for him to communicate back to us because “mo” just isn’t going to cut it for much longer.

He’s also had some cool “firsts” in the last few weeks.  He got to ride in the shopping cart seat for the first time while I was running errands for work.  He had bumpers on either side, but really seemed to like this new view on shopping.  Connor also had a first at the nearby park – his first time swinging!  He loved it and I know that as he gets stronger this summer his time in the swing will increase.


Last week, I took him to his 18 month well visit with our pediatrician.  He’s 34 inches long and weighs 22 pounds 4 ounces.  He’s grown one inch in the last 3 months and gained half a pound. 

Prayer and good wishes requests: obviously for Connor’s surgery, for a positive feeding appointment next week and for continued progress physically and with his feeding.

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