Wow! It has been forever since I last updated this blog and I'm sure there is a ton to catch up on. I'll try to summarize the smaller stuff and then get to the big news and try to explain that in the best way possible.
Since August, Eli has done a great job recovering and thriving post op from stomach surgery. He has a really big scar horizontally across his stomach and in my opinion it just adds to the awesomeness of his journey. We have had no complications since then and everything cardiac wise has been going great.
He did have a rough winter as far as illness goes, I'm pretty sure he set some record for the number of times he had croup. Such a horrible feeling hearing that cough and sometimes fever that accompanied it. We had two emergency room visits since the year started, neither one of them cardiac related.
In February, he tripped and fell into the wood stairs at grandma's house. He hit at the right spot near his nose to set off a horrible bloody nose and we thought it had split open. Since he is on aspirin as a blood thinner there was more blood than we were comfortable with treating at home so off to the ER we went. We had a few xrays done to check for broken bones and a few hours later we were on our way home with just a bandage. The next few days he had a wonderful black eyes but he's a boy and I'm sure there are many more to come.
At the end of March, while we were on vacation in the smokey mountains, Eli had a really rough day of crabbiness with a slight cough. Rafe and I knew his behavior was not typical because he was just acting so horribly. The next morning around 3 am he woke up with a bad cough and was very restless for an hour or so. When I woke up around 8am I noticed Eli was bright red and just burning up. Because of Eli's cardiac condition, once he reaches a certain temperature it becomes an automatic ER visit to check for possible heart failure, etc. It was so bad that morning that Eli even asked to go see the doctor, poor baby! As we were walking out of the hotel Eli threw up all over Rafe. He ended up being diagnosed with bronchitis and an upper respiratory infection with possible signs of pneumonia. He really perked up after the ER so we were still able to enjoy our last day of vacation.
Moving on to the big news:
As many of you know, Eli receives three different therapies a week: physical, developmental, and occupational. Once he reaches the age of 3 he no longer qualifies to get treatment through the state via Early Intervention. At that point the school systems step in and determine if he is eligible to receive early education schooling. He has to have some sort of impairment that "affects his ability to learn". It is slightly different than early intervention because it really has to focus on the educational aspect of growing. While Eli is seemingly very smart and his vocabulary is amazing, he is still behind on fine and gross motor skills.
We had an evaluation meeting a few weeks ago where about 8 different therapists, teachers, nurse and psychologist all played and studied Eli's behaviors and responses to the different tests they put him through. He was a little better behaved than he typically is and I was worried they didn't get to see the true Eli. The one who gets mad and impatient when things don't go as planned the first time. When he resorts to tantrums and hitting when he is told No or asked to do something he doesn't want to do. I left the meeting pretty convinced he wasn't going to qualify for the school.
Yesterday we had the meeting where they went over all of their notes and discussed the plan for Eli. We are very happy to say he WILL be going to school in the fall! It will be 2.5 hours a day and a 4/5 day school weeks, rotating each week. He will be in a blended classroom where there will be some special ed kids and some "at risk" kids. He qualified based off of "other medical needs", meaning he isn't special ed and not necessarily at risk, but that his medical condition has set him far enough behind that they see the need to continue helping him in a structured setting. While at school he will continue to receive both physical and occupational therapy weekly, in the classroom.
We got to tour the classroom and he walked right in with a group of 5 year old kids and had a blast playing with them. I'm sure he will have a great time at school and love being around other kids his age. We look forward to seeing how much this will grow and expand his brain
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| My favorite little boy!!! |
