Darn that hand

Today we had Karsen's OT appointment, bright and early. It had been a good month since we have seen this OT (if you can't remember, he's the one that has really bad BO from this post., and yes he still stinks) because of sick kids, 48 hour EEG, and a sick mom. This OT focuses a lot on Karsen's affected hand. Every person on Karsen's "team" seems to divide up Karsen's areas to focus on, quite perfectly. One person to take on speech and communication, one person for eating, one person for motor skills, and one person for his affect hand. To me, it seems well rounded, I'm pretty happy with it. We had to take a few steps back and go over everything Karsen is doing and not doing since it had been so long since he had seen him. One thing that we talked about was Karsen's hand/arm. It seems much tighter to him than the last time he saw him. Which I completely agree. Karsen's hand and arm has seemed tighter and tighter each week. Botox was brought up in our discussion. I was a little shocked, I knew it has been used plenty of times with great results and had done a ton of research on it. I guess I just didn't think we were there yet. Botox is widely known for taking away wrinkles, so to speak. Although we know they don't "take them away". they relax the muscles they are shot into. So, in Karsen's case, they would inject botox into the muscles that are constantly tight, constantly working. It would loosen those up, therefore giving Karsen the ability to strengthen the other muscles in his arm that are not being used because of his spasticity. Ok, have I lost you? Spasticity is unusual tightness, stiffness, or pull of muscles. This is the most common type of cerebral palsy. Karsen has spastic hemiplegic cerebral palsy. There are three other types of cerebral palsy; ataxic, dyskinetic, and thetoid. Ok, enough medical education for the day.... a lot of kids undergo botox to help with their cp. Sometimes, they'll do their arm/hand, sometimes their leg, or somethings both. They would have to put Karsen under to do it, which always makes me nervous. We'll see. When we meet with Karsen's physiatrist, we'll talk about it more and maybe get a date set, if that's the route we take.
We still have 4 more weeks left until Karsen is done tapering off his meds. He still isn't sleeping like his normal self, and naps are cut short, which makes for one tired mama. He's officially on the move, and I LOVE it. I think it's absolutely adorable. Every time I'm around someone, husband included, I'm constantly saying "LOOK! Isn't that so cute?!" ha. I'm sure I'm driving people nuts. He's still eating crackers like a chap (insert back flip), unfortunately still using his thumb to suck down his food, baby steps. After all, he is still a baby (sort of). We'll get there, in his own perfect time, in God's perfect time, we'll get there.
Karsen, hard at work at OT this morning.