Juice Box!!!!!!

Caleb has almost accomplished his last goal in my list of simple goals since they told me that my son had a brain injury just over a year ago. In the beginning my goals were simple...my son would walk, talk and go to college, in a 100% typical fashion! (he's well on his way to accomplishing all three :), even if the third is about 17 years away). Then.... with all the swallowing issues my new simple goal was on the first day of kindergarten, my son would be able to have a juice box with all the other kids and wouldn't have a "special" drink that was thickened. Well.....

On Tuesday we went down for another evaluation in Cincy, this time the feeding team and they were amazed by Caleb's progress. One therapist who had met him before for other procedures said that he had made a ton of progress since she last saw him (5 days b/f his cord blood infusion)... It was kind of funny...she had this ahh ahh expression when I was giving history report to a new person and told them about the cord blood, she had forgotten and was trying to figure out what had changed to make him progress so quickly.

They gave the OK to start gradually thinning his liquids, with continued practice of small amounts of ultra thin (i.e. water, juice) each day. So, this week I gave him his first "juice-box" (it was a capri-sun, they are in my fridge as it hides the taste of simply thick...its the only thing other than grape pedilyte and his milk that he will drink b/c of that stuff...if you'd taste it you'd understand)

His Music class teacher, Ms Kim, who did not know he had a cord blood infusion, made the comment last night that his just seems so much stronger and holds himself differently (thats the trunk tone, hard to see unless you are medical) and I've also had several people tell me since Feb 24th that wow, he's gone through a growth spurt...he hasn't, weight and height are still about the same as before with the typical weight, height gains, which are slow at this age.... Its the increse in tone!!!

Caleb is making me, Nick, his therapist and doctors a believer in cord blood! As we have seen a difference, some thought the difference woudl be hard to see, as the biggest areas of concern were on the inside, but you are able to see an improvement on the outside and inside! I am entrenly grateful for everyone at Duke, who got me in quickly and gave us the procedure!

We are told by all our Cincy and most the indy docs that we still need the procedures (which he gets put under for, they were post-poned until the end of this month b/c he was so sick) so....we will be back in Cinncy for 3 1/2 days the end of April then hopefully we are done!