Pics From Hippo Therapy

These pictures were from Ben's last winter Hippo Therapy session in the new indoor ring. His Occupational Therapist is on one side, Dad is on the other and a Volunteer is leading Dixie the pony (and I was waiting in the wings to suction Ben when needed). It takes an army of people to get Ben riding a horse, but definitely worth it!

Ben at School

Working on drawing lines (Ben's day nurse Troi is behind him)

Having fun with bubbles! (Ben's other day nurse Heather is on the left)

Playing some Priory Woods games on the computer.

The sensory table activity gets changed out on a regular basis - and it is always something super cool and clever. One of Ben's favorites is the flour/baking. He stands in a stander they have for him at school to play in it.

Adapted books are something Ben can choose to do during his free time. Often they have a student take turns with Ben doing while doing a book to learn to sharing and turn taking.

We have an EATER!

After Ben's recent ENT appointment and some encouragement from his doc, we started working on tastes again. Ben's ENT doctor really wants Ben to learn how to eat before trach reconstruction. The goal is for him to be better at swallowing and protecting his airway from aspirating his own secretions. The doc said a lot of people work on teaching these things AFTER the hours are put into recreating the airway and all the work ends up getting damaged - not to mention the child spends a lot of time being sick/hospitalized because they don't have the safety net of a trach. The trach allows you to suction food and secretions out of the airway before entering the lungs and causing pneumonia.

We started doing daily tastes of vanilla pudding in the evenings and Ben is responding better than EVER! He is interested, he is enjoying it and even requesting it. It is like something just clicked and he is ready to give it a shot and wants to learn! He amazes me. For someone who had so much horrible oral stimulation in his life (a vent and feeding tube in his mouth for almost four months), it is so heartwarming to see him enjoying food.