Update September 2004: Evan has continued to amaze us this year. Wow, where to begin. He continues to attend our local MRDD preschool - actually he's been off this summer and is ready to begin again in the next couple weeks. We're a bit anxious because while we know and love the school itself, he'll now be in an actual preschool class, no longer in the toddler. Last year there were 7 other little ones in his class, all the same age, and now he'll be in a class with up to 18 kids and with ages ranging from 3-6. YIKES!! He's still a bit timid around kids that are bigger than he is, so we're just praying that he adapts quickly. Two big events occurred this summer - one is that we were able to pull out his Mic-Key button. NO MORE TUBES!!! Getting him to take his Prevacid by mouth was our biggest challenge this spring and our little guy rose to the occasion and started taking the Solutabs with no fuss. We couldn't believe it. We got the all clear from his GI in Cincinnati, so on July 2, 2004 we celebrated Independence Day two days early by freeing him from his button!! We also got a good report from Dr. Cotton in regards to his airway - it is still nice and open, two years after his LTP. We'll see him again in December. Then, our next big event took place on August 3rd when we had our semi-annual meeting with the feeding team in Cincinnati. They told us they don't want to see us anymore! I really believe that it was the loss of his trach that helped him along with his eating. He gained 3 lbs from the end of March until we saw the team in August. They were thrilled with his progress as were we. We are still busy with speech therapy - he's talking up a storm but now we're starting to work on his voice quality more than speech and language itself due to his cord damage. We just continue to pray that his voice gets stronger and more audible to those who are not familiar with him.
He went to hippotherapy this summer and absolutely loved it! We weren't sure how he'd take to it due to his timidness, but by the end of the summer, his confidence just blossomed. The first day they had him on a miniature pony but then the next week and every week after that, they had him on a big, big horse!!
We were able to attend trach conference in St. Louis in June. What a wonderful experience that was. It was so nice to see other parents from the board as well as see Dr. Cotton, in a setting other than the hospital.
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