Summer's third and fourth treatments went well, and she had her "tubey" removed on Friday while she was still under anesthesia. Fridays are toy days at the proton center, and each kid gets to pick a toy from the cabinet (which is actually a cabinet and a couple of tables - they have a lot to choose from!). Summer picked a toy dinosaur this week, and I was worried she'd lose interest in it quickly, but she has played with it every day since.
She's really looking forward to the next toy day. She has told me several times "We'll go to the hospital and pick out a toy. Won't that be fun with the doctors?"
Summer also had a neurophsychology evaluation last week, where they play games with her, observe her doing physical tasks, and evaluate her on a number of levels - motor skills (gross and fine), language (comprehension and speech), social interaction, etc. Summer cooperated pretty well with most of the tests, and did better than I expected for a near-naptime appointment after having been under anesthesia, which always makes her a bit testy.
They'll write up a full report on her based on their observations and some LONG questionnaires I had to fill out (in fact, I still have to finish one up tonight to send over there tomorrow), but the neuropsychologist said that Summer was doing exceptionally well. She went far beyond her age level in the language-related games, and while she wasn't as far along in some of the physical categories, she was doing well there too.
She'll have similar evaluations annually to help us spot any problem areas (caused by her treatments) early on and get her help right away so she won't fall behind her peers.
While we've had all of Summer's appointments to get us out of the apartment every day, we've kept busy in other ways too. This week, our outings included a trip to the Children's Museum, the mall, and the Museum of Science.
I didn't bring the camera to the Children's Museum, since I've posted photos from there before, but here are some highlights from our trip to the Museum of Science today:
The butterfly garden.
A lightening tube.
There's some big long name for what this is, but basically it's a storm cloud simulator they use to generate indoor lightening. Summer and I got to watch a show - it was really cool!
"Rex" outside the museum. Summer loved the entire dinosaur exhibit inside, but I think this one was her favorite.
A giant grasshopper. Summer liked this guy so much, she picked a toy grasshopper out at the museum store for her special treat.
On the coldest days, we've stayed in and played with toys in our room or the common room. We've also watched quite a few movies. Summer's new favorite is The Rugrats Movie ("the baby movie").
After a week, we're getting closer to being on Boston time, but we're still not quite there yet. I was hopeful, when Summer took a good afternoon nap yesterday, that we'd be in bed before 11 last night. We did get in bed around 10pm, but she didn't settle down and fall asleep until sometime after 11. Still better than past nights when we've been up until 1am or later. Baby steps...
Summer's treatments next week, with the exception of Thursday morning, are much earlier. Hopefully this will also help with adjusting to Boston time since we won't be able to sleep in until after 9, and she'll have anesthesia earlier in the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment