Dylan had his assessment with a physiotherapist from the Royal Children’s Hospital yesterday. Apparently he is doing everything an 8 month old should be doing. She was impressed with his smooth movements and the fact that he reaches for things behind him and balances himself well while doing it. He has good control on his tummy and sits unsupported for minutes at a time but she says I need to just allow him to fall over when sitting so that he can learn to get back up into a sitting position by himself. Overall he is doing well and she is not worried about his development at this stage at all. That was a relief to know. She thinks he will be walking by the time he has his 12 month assessment. It’s scary that time is flying by so quickly.
During her visit I was able to ask her more about the research that she was doing and she told me she has 46 cardiac babies and has even started including CDH babies in the study. So far she has 3 CDH babies. This was really interesting to know because I have no doubt that if Alex had survived that he would have been developmentally delayed because of how critical he was and the amount of time he would have spent in hospital. He had so many oxygen desats that towards the end his doctors couldn’t guarantee me that he hadn’t suffered brain injury as a result. I would have accepted him whether he had brain damage or not and it annoyed me when the doctors repeatedly asked us if we wanted to discontinue his intensive care because he ‘may’ or ‘may not’ have suffered brain damage. My only concern at the time was his suffering which they assured me he wasn’t. Anyway – the physiotherapist did say that she was really worried about one of the three CDH babies but these kids go through so much in the first few weeks of life it is hardly surprising that it takes them a little longer to reach their milestones. The fact that they survive at all is a miracle in itself. She asked me if I was worried about Dylan and I said no but if Alex had survived I’m sure he would have needed lots of therapy. Its so great that they are working with these CDH kids as well.
Dylan had another tooth come through today. Yay! He now has 3 teeth at the bottom. He is testing his new tooth out while breastfeeding which I am not happy about. I had to pry open his jaws this afternoon. Lucky for me I managed to pry them open before any major damage was done.
