PT

Not to be confused with Potty Training.

The Boy had his first physical therapy session today. As I expected, her main focus with him is going to be on walking. He was relatively cooperative, and, more importantly, he did a lot of things that showed her exactly what skills he had and what issues he was facing.

As far as issues go, the dropped foot is definitely evident. As we suspected. It isn't that severe, but when he picks up his feet to move around, his foot turns down more than it should.

The therapist said that he demonstrates a lot of walking and motor skills that are more advanced than most early walkers. He stands on tiptoes to reach things and has no problem squatting down and standing back up while holding on. He has, a few times, done that without holding on. Furthermore, he was able to push up from the floor to standing not very long after he started taking steps. Because he was pretty close to walking at the time of his diagnosis, at 10 months old, she thinks that he continued to grow and learn but that there was a disconnect between the other skills that he learned while holding on or using push toys and actually being able to let go and walk. His body was too busy just trying to make it through chemo to worry about silly little things like walking.

Overall her attitude seemed to match ours, that we were pretty sure he'd be okay but that he'd need a little extra help and that it made a lot of sense to have him followed to be sure that he stays on track.

She had a few things that she wanted us to work on with him. To strengthen the legs and encourage him to do "squats" she placed a wood puzzle on a chair and put the pieces on the floor. He wasn't having that at first but he did come back to it. He plays with magnets on the fridge and often does the same thing. Also, when he plays while sitting on my lap, she said to turn his feet so that they are flat on the floor. That way he is more likely to stand up from there. A stepstool would also accomplish the same thing.

So that went well, and I feel like it will be pretty easy to do what she suggests. Having the therapists come makes us more aware of what sorts of things he needs to work on in order to stay on track.