Ben's first official day of Preschool is next Wednesday, September 9. I'm excited for him and anxious to see how he adjusts to a schedule again. We had our home visit with his new teacher. She seems great and was really receptive to working with Ben's little "quirks". His WONDERFUL aid from last year will be with him again this year. Having that consistency is going to help him hit the ground running this year. He will be attending morning sessions again this year and will be going Monday through Thursday. We are also hoping he successfully rides the bus again this year (the buses this year will pick up Preschool, Kindergarten and 1st grade instead of just Preschool on one bus). I can't believe how fast this summer went.
We have had Ben's new Monday/Tuesday day Nurse work twice and she has done great with him. I feel confident that she will be all set to go to school with him next week. What a huge relief! Our other day nurse has been with us for years and she is excited to start another school year with Ben. She will go to school with him on Wednesday/Thursday.
We received the fall sign-up for Hippo Therapy in the mail and I'm really hoping we get a spot. Ben is fully recovered from his testicle surgery and able to ride again. I hope he hasn't forgotten his love of horses! Fall session is on Saturday mornings, so that will be a really nice family event for us to do together 3 Saturdays in October. I just LOVE Hippo Therapy!
I also wanted to give a quick update on some of Ben's labs/tests that I previously mentioned. We have decided not to do any further testing regarding his thyroid. After talking to his Endocrinologist, we've decided to wait for now and retest in another year. His Endocrine Doc wasn't as concerned with the numbers as Ben's Pediatrician and since thyroid falls under the speciality of endocrinology, I decided to go with his advice. Ben also had a bone age test and a bone density test (two different tests). Ben's bone age was normal, YAY! However, Ben's bone density was low. We are going to start Osteoporosis meds for his low bone density and he will be retested in a year (since the meds take a long time to really make a difference). Because he doesn't walk or weight bear, his bones are more brittle. We really need to work with him more in the Stander and/or Pony Walker. Now that he is all healed up from surgery, there's no excuse. We went back in to Audiology for another mapping of Ben's Cochlear Implant. We went even lower this time and checked the integrity of all of Ben's internal electrodes. Everything tested fine. I am able to get Ben to wear his implant for 15 minutes a day now as long as I sit next to him and hold my hand on his head over the implant (Ben insists on this, and the only reason I can figure out why is that it's comforting). He isn't getting much sensory input from the current mapping, but definitely a start!
And last but not least, Ben pulled his trach out on Sunday (the second time in 4 years this has happened). Ben can not breath at all with his trach out and it really gave him a scare (us too). He somehow flicked it out with his ties still on. He is doing fine... both Mike and I were home, thank goodness! We got it back in, started a little Oxygen and he was back to himself in no time. I was hoping this would scare him from any future trach pulling, but no such luck. Later that night, Ben was back to throwing the nose that sits on his trach. I just took this incident as a reminder of how fast something like this can happen and how I always need to be in the room with him. If I have to leave the room, I need to make sure to check every few minutes (literally, because that is all it takes). I know I have been getting more lax leaving Ben in a room by himself to throw in a load of laundry or check email. This reminded me of why I need to have an eye on him at all times. He sure keeps us on our toes!!
