First day with Anat Baniel therapy

Today we had our first 2 sessions of therapy with Marcy Lindheimer. Marcy was very pleased with the progress Bella has made over the last 4 months since she saw her in September and commented on how much more aware and available she is. I think because I see Bella every day I don't notice the changes as much unless I stop to think about them. We are working on teaching Bella to stand up by herself. She has already been pulling herself to standing against people and couches but we will work on her implementation and confidence with this. It is really good to be back in New York and getting another perspective on Bella and how to enhance her development.

Another thing is that Bella is eating really well and is very willing to try new foods which is very 'unlike' her. I believe it is due to the biomedical approach we are taking and the GFCF diet. I think her gut is more 'comfortable' which leads her to be more willing with food.

Max stayed at home today because there was so much traffic after the storm last night that Grant went back home. The tree fellers arrived shortly after and there was no way Grant was going to get Max away from the tree felling action. Apparently by the end of the day he was good friends with all the guys. That is just so like Max!!

Max is going for his Grade 0 assessment at St David's next week Tuesday which I am really upset to missing. I can't believe he is going to big school next year. Here is a picture of Max the night before I came to New York.

January 2010 - Full steam ahead

Its only the 12 January and it has been a hectic month already...

We went to see the DAN practioner on Wednesday last week and she has put Bella on GFCF diet and a whole range of supplements. We are sending some tests off overseas to confirm what she saw in Bella's live blood analysis. One of the tests required her hair to be sent to the lab so I had to cut off a huge patch of hair at the back of her head which looked so silly with the long curls on top of Bella's head. In the end we had to cut most of her much shorter which is quite upsetting because I was enjoying 'styling' her curls with pretty clips etc. Anyway, small things..... We started Bella on the new diet regime and she is definitely sleeping better and seems a lot brighter and doing a lot more exploring around the house. Its hard to pinpoint it to the diet because she has also finished the Phenobarb completely. I would love to chat to some Moms who have done the whole GFCF thing.

We went back to the Opthalamologist for a check up because I had noticed Bella seems to have a squint developing. The eye doc was very happy with improvement in her vision since October 2008 (when she now tells me Bella couldn't see anything). She said that her vision is perfect and that the squint is quite common and she thinks unrelated to Bella's other problems. It will either go away or she will need glasses or eye surgery. We have to go back in April to see what has happened. I discussed this with Bella's OT and she has recommended some eye exercises to strengthen her eye muslces if it is just due to eye muscle weakness. It is quite possible so because it is an intermittent squint which happend randomly in both eyes.

Bella had her check-up EEG yesterday which was supposed to be a 2 hour sleeping EEG. I didn't sedate because she normally doesnt react well but instead decided to time it over a sleep time. Needless to say Bella thought it would be way more fun to pull the cords of her head and try to climb out of her pram.

After her EEG cut off the offending glue with the extra long curls to try and turn her bad hair day into a good hair day..

We should get the results of the now 20 minute EEG this week before we leave for New York this Saturday. I can't believe how quickly time has passed and we are off for our second Anat Baniel Method session. I am not sure what I want to come out of this session. Last time I wanted Bella to crawl but I do not want to push the walking yet because she needs to spend a fait bit of time crawling. So I think I am just going to go with the flow...

I am so stressed out about leaving Max. I have had the feeling that he is more prepared for it than last time but as the time draws nearer I can see that he is starting to get stressed :(

The next time I write I will probably be in New York.