Sorry I had to cut that last one short!  I wasn’t paying attention to the time.  We’ve been having AWFUL snow here the past several weeks, my one night out (Sunday evenings from approx. 545pm – 815pm) but the bowling alley is MAYBE 1 mile down the road & it was an obstacle driving there last night! THATS how bad the roads have been! & not to mention I’m a TOTAL “scardey-cat” driving in the snow b/c of a bad accident Anthony and I were in back in the winter of either ’04 or ’05.. I WANNA say 2005 but not sure… EITHER way – I just get extreme anxiety when I have to drive in the snow, & theres been MORE than enough lately..

ANYWAY — I got a good phone call today!  Rowan’s NEWEST Therapist, ( I don’t want to write her name wrong, she said it quickly! But it was either Carrie or Kiley) <<- SOMETHING like that!!  But she’s Rowie’s new OT / Occupational Therapist!!  Rowan had an OT back when she 1st began getting therapies, she had JUST OT & PT, but when we moved this past July, only the Physical Therapist was willing to make the “drive” to our new home & we’ve been without an OT up until NOW!!  She’ll be comming on Monday’s at 2pm.  Monday WAS our only day OFF of having NO therapists, but UNFORTUNATELY, last week I got some rather sad news, I spoke often in previous posts of “Paula, Rowans Speech&Feeding Therapist”.  She had to take several weeks off mid-December due to a knee or ankle surgery she was having.. well last week when the Special Instructor Jen was here I asked when Paula would be returning back to work with Rowan again b/c it’s been quite a while now, (I asked Jen b/c she and Paula work for the same medical provider) Like, ALL of Rowan’s Therapists are from the “Early Intervention Program” But they don’t all necessarily work “together”.. for example our OLD Occupational Therapist Erin, & Kelly, our Physical Therapist that comes over on Thursdays, THEY were both from the same business. And now Shari, Rowan’s PT that comes over on Tuesdays comes from the same place that our newest addition Occupational Thearpist that will be comming on Mondays.. WELL Jen & Paula worked for the same “company” <- for lack of a better word off the top of my head! SO – BACK TO MY STORY   When I asked Jen about Paula, her face kind of dropped & she said that unfortunately several days after her knee / ankle surgery she suffered a Stroke..  Only 42 years old & doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, seemed like a VERY healthy lady, & NICE as can be.. As life would have it she didn’t suffer much brain damage or anything like THAT from the stroke, the only problem she seems to be having is that SHE now has her OWN Speech Therapist… I guess after the stroke her speech has some problems.. What KIND of problems? I dunno.. All that was told to me was that they weren’t sure if she would be comming back to work since she’s a Speech Therapist & if she doesn’t feel confident in her OWN speech, then who knows..?  So I’m not sure if I should call my Early Intervention worker & get a NEW Speech Therapist or just wait to see if Paula returns..  But my heart TRUELY goes out to Paula & her family ‘n friends. She’s SUCH a sweet woman. I hope she recovers quickly. ღ

So Paula’s day was Friday. Now with adding the new OT on Monday’s I guess FOR NOW at least, Fridays will be Rowie’s “off day” …

and I guess I should clarify.. maybe some things I say people don’t fully understand WHY b/c they don’t know Rowan’s “full story” or..”diagnosis”..maybe?  For example, after my previous post, a girlfriend of mine who ALSO suffers from Hydro, Tina, commented and asked WHY were we un-sure if Rowie would ever be able to talk.

And I don’t really have an answer for that or ANYTHING, juts b/c, when I was pregnant with Rowie, and the doctors discovered her Hydro via  ultrasound – they thought that she had SOOO much pressure built up in there that it had damaged ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of her brain tissue.

After futher tests (more ultrasounds & a belly MRI on me) they found that NOT ALL of her brain tissue in there was damaged.. a large amount was definately damaged, but not all.  So NATURALLY Jeremy and I asked every other minute “What should we expect?! What should we expect from our baby?!?!” & NO Dr. could answer our question.  They ALL said that in cases like ours, only time will tell..

Then she was born and had her 1st brain surgery at 3 days old & 2nd brain surgery at 14 days old, and we asked the Neurologists & Neurosurgeons following her at THAT time AGAIN “What should we expect from our baby?!” and STILL got the SAME answer.  At 5 months when she took her 1st seizure and it lasted 3 hours, we asked MORE & MORE questions.. STILL zero answers.. Then at 6months when she got diagnosed with CP — MORE questions, NO answers. 
We’ve been told the SAME thing from day 1 up until the present time — that only time will tell with Rowan. Only TIME will show WHAT parts of the brain have been permanently damaged, and what parts of the brain have been NOT permanently damaged, and what parts of the brain have been not damaged at all..

Maybe 10 posts down ( or something like that!! ) I posted about when Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh sent us computer disk copies of Rowan’s most recent head ct scans (at THAT time, they were from August1st’09 <- which is the date of her last seizure)

But we asked if we brought them in a disk if they’d make a copy for us to take a look at here at home, and they said yes, but we didn’t even get the chance to get a disk to them & they’d mailed 1 to us!!  VERY nice of them   ANYWAY — I’m looking at this disk of 40 pictures of Rowie’s brain & it looks like Japaneese to me — I had NO CLUE wthell I was looking at.. I thought that it would be just like reading an ultrasound (one of the ultrasound techs kinda showed us the “basics” of looking at an ultrasound of Rowie’s brain when she was a newborn) But this CT Scan was TOTALLY different!! So I’m asking EVERYONE I know if they have even a CLUE of how to look at a head CT scan..FINALLY, Shari, who is Rowan’s ”newer” Physical Therapist worked at 2 different hospitals before IN the “Pediatric Neurology units” !  So she was QUITE familiar in HOW to read the CT scan of a child’s head.

So she & I sat down after one of Rowan’s PT sessions & she showed me EXACTALLY what all 40 shots/pics of her head were “of”  & the most “important” ones to look at, and what to look FOR, etc.

When all was said ‘n done she looked at me with all honesty & said “If I looked at this set of scans & didn’t know that they belonged to Rowan, I would guess that this child had MAJOR learning delays, physical delays, mental delays, The works.. Rowan is a TRUE miracle & the things that she can do with THIS much dead brain tissue is nothing short of amazing.

That was just a few months ago, so it was kind of a “reality check” of just HOW blessed we are to have Rowan & to be able to watch her learn the things she’s been learning over the past several weeks makes me SO SO proud of her.  She had / HAS all odds against her & is doin pretty darn good ( in my opinion at least! )  

So THATS why sometimes here & there I’ll make a comment about how I’m not sure if she’ll do “this”  or if she’ll do “that” — it’s all simply because of how theese Doctors have my brain trained, after all of this time ALL I’ve been told is “only time will tell” when it comes to EVERY aspect of Rowan’s life to come.

So thats all for now, Rowan had Physical Therapy today and Special Instruction.  We ALSO got her all set up with her NEWEST Therapist on Monday, her Occupational Therapist.  So I hope to get another post in either later today or, 1st thing tomorrow.. but as EVERYONE knows, you NEVER know if things will go as planned!

Thanks for reading & best wishes to everyone!
Happy 2010!

ⒷⓁⒺⓈⓈⒾⓃⒼⓈ ⒶⓃⒹ ⒸⒽⒺⒺⓇ

Andrea & Rowie ღ