Assessment Time

Christian had his first physical therapy assessment yesterday. The therapist was an older woman with a hawk eye. She had me undress Christian down to his diaper and than her eyes roved over every joint and muscle on his frame as he played with toddler block toy that required standing and bending. She quickly noticed his feet weren't giving adequate support. He has flat baby feet that haven't matured and his ankles slide way too far when he stands. Because it's uncomfortable to be on his feet, his little calves have low muscle tone. His arms and core are also low in muscle tone. The remedy will be some orthotic inserts and some new shoes from Stride Rite. As long as he improves with the inserts he won't need the full orthotic shoes. The therapist says Christian has knee walked because his brain is telling him it's time to be upright but his feet and ankles aren't on board.

The occupational therapy assessment comes today and the speech therapy tomorrow. The physical therapist says sometimes when a child is working hard on gross motor skills, other skills like speech can suffer. We'll see what they say.

I'm certainly glad I ignored most well meaning comments sent my way and went ahead with the assessment yesterday. Yesterday morning one friend told me not to spend the time and money because Christian is crawling, standing, and walking with assistance. Her toddler did physical therapy because she never crawled and just scooted on her bottom. Another friend kept saying to wait because he seems so close and therapy is expensive. The lady on the phone for the free therapy through California Alta Regional pooh poohed me and said he's only had his ear tubes in for two weeks so she felt unsure about giving me a case worker for his speech or walking. At every turn it feels like I'm being judged as an impatient hypochondriac. Is it that or am I just too sensitive?

Christian has an adorable little smiley face and floppy blond hair. Maybe it's just because he engages people with his eyes and smile that they look at him and think everything is fine. I don't feel insanely worried. He's just slower and smaller than my other kids. Some things don't seem right and I want to be a good mother and investigate. It's sad to watch other toddlers his size running around the park and talking and Christian just pulling up and standing at the park bench. The other comments that are troubling are things like, "well...no matter what happens, he's better off than so and so who has such and such syndrome." Ok, yes...I am very sensitive to the fact that there are worse things. I saw many worse cases yesterday at the pediatric therapy center. Does this mean I shouldn't worry at all about my child because he's not as bad off as someone else? Is that supposed to be comforting?

The other thing that isn't that comforting is hearing about other similar situations where the child ended up just fine. It's like getting diagnosed with cancer and hearing stories from others about cancer survivors. That's fine for them but you ask yourself, "what about me?"

Comforting things that can be said:

"I can understand why you'd be concerned. I would be too if my child was showing some delays." Or, "It's good your doing all you can to get to the bottom of this early on."

Now I've written the script for anyone who wants to leave a comment. Ha ha. Don't worry, all of these comments came from local friends and family (Kelly) and none of my blogging friends.

Before I leave I'll say that I'm guilty of saying the wrong thing too. We all mean well. It just feels lonely when you have a problem or concern and others want to sweep it under the rug with their comments. I still love everyone. My unmarried sister hates it when I tell her about the old maid Smith sisters who I thought had everything going wrong for them and one of them ended up getting married after all in her 40s. She says it's the worst thing to say for reasons mentioned above (think cancer patient). I'm done with my biotchy rant for the day.