HBOT Update - Angelina is doing very well!

Okay so Angelina started HBOT on Monday 10/26 and she is doing quite well with it. The tech told me that they would do the first "dive" to see how she handles it and if she can clear her ears then we would discuss payment. Well she did very well, in fact she didn't even act like she noticed it at all! She was staring up at the TV in amazement like she was thinking "how'd that get up there??" That was that! I turned over the payment and now we are on the stick for 3 more weeks! Angelina has a good time in the chamber watching a movie or taking a quick snooze. I was sort of surprised that she acclimated herself so well and so quickly! Such a big girl she is!! It took almost 1.5 hours to get home and I was tired from all the rain and the day and was not looking forward to making dinner. I swear somebody upstairs likes me a little because Larry called to tell me that his mom brought dinner for us - hamberger pie and salad! I was so happy that kind of made the rain not suck so bad!

Yesterday we had a bit of a vehicle issue. Larry made out this nice pallate in the back of the van for Angelina to nap on while she was having her lunch and since it was warmer yesterday we needed some airflow. Not remembering that having the electric on in the car while the engine is off drains the battery (I was just concerned about the temp in there and my girly) I proceeded to completely kill the battery. NOW in my defense, I called Larry to check in with him and had he answered the phone or called me back before a whole hour passed by all this could have been avoided because I would have told him what I was doing and he would have told me about the whole battery dying thing. BUT he didn't call me back or text me back for an hour or so. Luckily some random guy must have heard the ticking of my dead car as I tried to turn her over and tapped on my window advising me that my battery was dead....ummm thank you I'm perfectly aware my car is dead. As it would turn out he helped me get the car jumped off. I started off the day saying a short prayer to keep us safe and get us home safely. Nevermind that he had just come from the Jason's Deli for lunch - with his AA group - he told me that he had 3 sisters and would hope that someone would help them out. Who was I to question the package my help was delivered in?? It was kind of awkward because I was holding Angelina (she hadn't gone back in for her 2nd dive just yet) and needed to take her back to the HBOT office but didn't want to lose this guy's help. God works in mysterious ways. He assured me that he would wait for me to come back. When I came back there were people showing up to help and I had no clue how they knew it was me that needed the help, but they knew. Now I thought I had jumper cables because I had purchased some specifically for an occasion such as this but they were nowhere to be found. I call Larry to find out just where they are and he says they are in the garage by his car. Of course they are. Luckily one of the girls in the HBOT office had cables and let me use them. Longer story shortened, we got the van started and it took us home an hour later! Yeah!

Cirstyn went with us today and needless to say we did not stay in the van for naps we used the HBOT's office family room since no one else was using it. All went well and we look forward to a good visit tomorrow!

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy here we come!

Angelina starts HBOT at the Hyperbaric Centers Of Texas in Richardson tomorrow (10/26). She will have 2 sessions per day 6 days per week for 3.5 weeks! So she and I will be travel partners for the next three weeks back and forth...everyday...until 11/19. I have to admit while I am excited about her finally beginning to start this therapy I am apprehensive about the drive and the time commitment each day. We will leave around 9:30 a.m. and won't return home until 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. Now I realize that is less than the typical work day for most but I think Cirstyn and Brady will be non-to-thrilled with me being gone all that time. I would like to take Cirstyn with me but Larry and I agree that exposing her to others during flu season isn't the wisest choice so she will be bottling some and I will be pumping while we're gone. Brady will still go to MDO on Monday and Wednesday so those days he probably won't be to crabby about me not being there when he gets home, but the other 4 days I think he will! I am hopeful he will just have fun. Larry is going to stay up tomorrow morning, take Brady to MDO and stay with Cirstyn. Brandie Jo is coming by for a couple of hours so Larry can take a nap until I get home. He will be in charge Tuesday and Wednesday as well. Karen has taken Thursdays, Nanny has Fridays and Mom has Saturdays.

I am going to take my camera and video camera in case they will let me take pictures. It's supposed to be really simple. She will just lay on a bed inside this large plastic clear cylinder and breathe. She will have a TV and I am going to take some DVD's she likes in case there is a DVD player hooked up. They call the sessions "dives" because it's pressurized like being underwater and I am hopeful that she will be able to clear her ears when each dive is over. I will make sure to take a sippy cup to give her water so that she has to swallow to clear her ears. Dr. Johnson told us that if she can't he can just "pop in some tubes" so she can. We'll see. We had the option to let her use the single person chamber or the group chamber. If she used the group chamber then I would sit in the room with her but she would have a helmet like device on her head to administer the oxygen through. When the tech told us that Larry and I looked at each other and in unison said "the single chamber please!" Originally we thought that she would do better in the group chamber but when he told us about the helmet, well that was the end of that! I so hope she does well with the process and that her body will respond this therapy. Not in the "miracle cure" way but just being a little more coordinated.

Now that I think about it, this time last year is when I started doing research on alternative treatments and therapies to help my beautiful little girl. I was doing research on stem cell therapy and found the info on HBOT. I haven't given up hope yet on stem cell therapy and am hopeful that someone will be doing "donor cord blood" stem cell therapy soon. The latest that I have heard on that from the Dr. at Univ of Arizona is that they are having to reapply for funding to start that research. I can't believe it's been a year already since all of this started. Angelina has changed so much since then and all for the better. Larry and I have always said that if there was no more progress with her and she stayed the way she is that would be okay with us, but we have to give her the opportunity to heal just a little if she can. She has made lots of really great progress this year with all of her therapy and she knows she can do more things now. I can see it in her eyes when she is trying to get up but just can't quite get there. I can see the words running through her mind - I think I can, I think I can. Angelina just amazes me. She makes me remember that no matter how bad I think it is, I can find a smile so that means it's all okay. Larry was right when he told me that God gave her to us to teach us patience. I remember this when I get frustrated with the monotony of the routine or the endless appointments. She truly is a blessing in so many ways. She continues to be the little engine that could....little by little! :)

More Than A Massage

I subscribe to Dallas/Fort Worth/ North Texas Child and they have started a new magazine called Dallas/Fort Worth THRIVE. THRIVE is a magazine specifically designed as a resource for special needs kids and their parents. Today I received my usual daily email and the new THRIVE October issue was out. So I clicked my way to see what it had in store. The first article I clicked on was More Than A Massage. To my surprise it is an article about Craniosacral Therapy - the same therapy Angelina is having done now! I thought this was so cool so I am sharing with you now! Here's the article and here is the link......

MORE THAN A MASSAGE

It looks and feels like a relaxing massage. But what’s going on during craniosacral therapy (CST) is much more technical than it looks.The massage look of CST is actually the trained hands of a doctor releasing restrictions of the cerebrospinal fluid. This fluid affects the central nervous system, which controls just about everything. When the fluid is moving as it should, our body’s central nervous system functions optimally. Sally Fryer, founder of Interactive Pediatric Therapy in Dallas, says she was skeptical upon first learning about the technique founded by Dr. John Upledger, who developed the technique in the ’70s. She attended a seminar intending to prove to herself that the therapy was inconsequential. But, she proved herself wrong instead. Now she believes anyone can benefit from CST. She uses it often for kids with gastric problems, sleep disturbances, eating issues, sensory and attention issues, seizure disorders and autism. “In my experience of over 30 years,” she says, “I have never seen kids go as far or as fast as the kids who combine other therapies with craniosacral work.”

www.dfwthrivemagazine.com