Hopeful once again!

It's never easy hearing all of the negative in any situation. After being told something over and over again or hearing yourself say the same thing over and over again you start to believe it or it starts to effect you. I know that Early Intervention is a great service and I'm not saying that we didn't get anything out of it but I feel like it wasn't enough for Molly. She needed and still needs more than what they had to offer.

So today we met with the outpatient rehab therapists and I feel so much better than I did the other day after our last assessment with the school system. This rehab facility sees all types of kids and I really believe this is where she needs to be. I think she is going to benefit greatly from their services. They understood what I said when I spoke. They asked my goals for her and what I wanted to come out of her therapy. They have all kinds of equipment for her to use. They are very nice and kid friendly and I was so happy walking out of there today. For the first time ever a therapist said that Molly was smart. Just because she doesn't speak doesn't mean she can't be intelligent. I know that Molly is a miracle and she has been through so much in her short life and she will catch up but sometimes it's easy for me to get caught up in the fact that she is 3 years old and doesn't walk and talk. I can't take her to a playground and tell her to go play. But after taking her to this place today they gave me hope that one day she will be able to do all of those things. It's hard when I go on Facebook and see kids that were born after Molly doing all of the things she should be doing, therefore I've taken a step back because sometimes it just gets to be too much.

So what we got out of today: we met with the speech therapist first and she was great. She took down her medical history (the very brief version) and we talked about what Molly does (not what she doesn't do) and she worked with her a little bit. She said that Molly communicates just fine with her facial expressions which is something EI used to say all the time. She has a way of looking at you as if she's saying "are you stupid?" and giving you a complex. The lady thought she was hilarious and said they were going to have fun and I hope that's the case. We are going to start with just one day a week with speech and if she does well we will bump it up. Then we met with the physical therapist and she was also very nice. She checked all of her muscles, took a look at her walking, put her in a walker that she wanted no part of and observed her standing and bending over. She has low muscle tone but not too bad and not concerning. She also thinks that she will benefit from braces on her legs/ankles and she thinks that Molly isn't walking independently yet because she lacks confidence and nothing more and after thinking about it it makes so much sense. She thinks she's very close and because she is close we are going to see her twice a week. She did not say they were going to have fun but said Molly was going to give her a run for her money. I think there's a CICU full of nurses in Boston that have also said that once or twice. We are also going to enroll her in pool therapy. It will be great for muscle strengthening and she will love it.

So overall, I'm so happy to start this next phase of therapy. I thought our summer was going to be quiet but we have already filled up our days and I'm very OK with it as long as Molly benefits from it and makes the progress that she needs to. Plus she was so good and she loved it too!

Here's to hoping for a successful next step...