Following Up

Following up on my last post, Samuel did have an ear infection.  Two in fact.  The doctor said that on a scale from one to ten (ten=burst eardrum), both of his ears were at about a nine.  Ick.  We've been faithfully giving him antibiotics since Tuesday, and he is almost back to his usual happy self.

Understandably, he didn't eat much early in the week...but by the time Thursday came, he had an insatiable appetite.  His hunger has even driven him to self-feed at times - something we've been working hard at for a while now.  Yesterday he pulled out a juice box from the cabinet and asked to drink it.  (We bought them several months ago, but he didn't show an interest.)  So I handed him the box and a bowl of goldfish...and watched as he eagerly ate and drank.  What a big boy!

As if the ear infections weren't exciting enough, his physical therapist taped his legs on Wednesday to help discourage the use of a particular muscle group (gastrocs, for those of you who care) which he tends to rely on when things get too hard (ie walking up a hill, down a hill, running fast...etc.)

I was pretty shocked when she brought him out with the slap-you-in-the-face-blue tape all up and down his legs.  I had imagined skin-colored tape since that was the color of the test strip they had put on him last week.  The blue was a little more obvious than I would have liked, and by Friday I was sick and tired of people asking me if he was OK.  Regardless, we will do whatever we need to...and if that means that I get asked a BILLION times, "What's wrong with his legs?" then I'll have to come up with a really good sob story.  Ha!

We were especially glad that Samuel was feeling well today because it was his first day in the regular nursery at church!  Before now, he has received one-to-one services to keep him away from other children during RSV season.  As thankful as we are that our church provides this program for special needs children, we were excited to see him 'graduate' to the regular germ-filled nursery (lol.)

Samuel's last day in One-to-One.

This morning in the nursery (that's him in the back.)

And it looks like this won't be the only special service falling away this summer.  It's likely that Samuel will not qualify for Developmental Therapy when he is reevaluated next week.  Also, his speech therapist recently informed me that she will begin tapering off therapy over the next few weeks in preparation for dismissal.  He no longer requires her services now that he is eating so well!

I'm starting to think that this little boy isn't quite so little anymore...