Monday 14 December 2009

Zack smiled and laughed

Zack has been working on his smiles. He does it every day now. Not all the time but a few times a day and it is wonderful. We even had a big break through.

I took Zack for his EEG at Alder Hey. He had finished his steroids the day before and he was having his third EEG done to check whether the hypsarrythmia had stopped. We got taken into the room and the nurse went off to get him some toys. Oh, okay I said thinking well he isn't going to be very interested in them but go on then. She came back with an assortment of noisy toys and I picked up this little clacker toy that when shook made a loud clacking sound. So I nonchalantly waved it in front of Zack's face and there was the biggest grin ever. Well that was it, shake, shake, clack, clack. Followed by oh my God, he loves this, where did you get it, I'll have to get him one. The nurse was kind enough to give us the toy as she thought it was so lovely that he was smiling and obviously loved this new adopted toy. He then proceeded to sleep through his EEG and then off we went to see his Grandad. (Nanny was off on a cruise and wasn't being ignored in case you were wondering). So I told Grandad P. about his new toy and shook it in front of his face......nothing......not interested. He might be hungry I thought, I fed Zack and he seemed a little more content, we tried the toy again. What a response. Zack smiled and laughed. We would shake the toy, wait and then he did this cute little laugh sound and even made some proper baby noises. The other big thing was, he didn't have his hearing aids in, it was fantastic, he continued doing this quite a few times I couldn't wait to come home and show his dad.

I got home, Dan came in, I plonked Zack on his knee, watch this I said. Clack, clack, clack............Zack started crying. Oh. I'll try again. Clack, clack, clack, nope not interested. I explained to Dan what had happened. But from that day on Zack has not reacted to the clacker toy like he did at Grandads. But what he has been doing is finding other things interesting like a jangling bell, rubbing his hands, talking to him. He will smile. Its great and a big step forward.

Other good news for this week was that we went to get his eyes checked out. The optician took a look to see if he needed baby glasses. He doesn't. Everything looked normal. We then went to see the consultant who looked into the back of the eyes and everything looked okay there. She said that we need to continue with stimulating his vision as the development of it may be a bit slow due to his injury but there is nothing wrong with his eyes. At last an appointment that we went too were we haven't come away with bad news.

We are now just waiting on the results of Zack's latest EEG. His seizures have now either been the same in number or slightly less, either way they haven't stopped completely.


Zack had his physiotherapy and did very well. She said that it was the most awake she had seen him and he was very relaxed. He even managed some smiling whilst in tummy time and he hates that. We took a look at his high chair and he promptly displayed his ability to try and escape from it but we agreed to try and sit him in it in short bursts to get him used to the new seating arrangement.

Zack went to his first Christmas party the other day and slept through most of it. The party was organised via some wonderful parents from the forum Special Kids in the UK. They did a great job and it was really good to meet other parents who have children with special needs. It was lovely to see the children enjoying themselves, disability or no disability. Shame Mr Pants slept through most of it but by next year he will be much older and possibly more awake!


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