The little things just keep coming together!!! 

 Tatum is so aware of her world and what she is working towards. She pushes her way through her daily program and is so obviously proud of herself. Today our wonderful support worker, Michy wrote in Tatum's daily journal "I love, love, love the way Tatum responds to praise. It makes my heart sing. She so understands EVERYTHING!" It's true, she understands everything and it is so great to see it. When you ask Tatum for a kiss, she smacks her lips and LOVES kissing! When you ask her to put her hands in yours, she does! We've started using a choice board to allow Tatum to express herself and it is so amazing. We ask her everything from "are you hungry?", "are you ready for bed?", "did you enjoy that?" to "do you want to take a break?" and most of the time her answer is very clear. It's such a gift to be able to communicate and understand Tatum's needs and wants. 

We've noticed huge improvements in Tatum's fine motor skills in the past couple of weeks. She is picking up toys and moving them from hand to hand. She picks up her Dolly and shakes it with joy. One of the BEST things that she is now doing is that she holds on when we are carrying her. It feels so good to know that she doesn't want to be put down, that she wants to be close to me. She is grabbing our faces, pulling our hair, rubbing our chests, grabbing our shirts, necklaces and glasses. It is so amazing to see Tatum use her hands and arms.

Today was a great day. We completed all 40 maskings that we are supposed to do each day - for the first time ever! The program that we have been prescribed is near impossible to complete each day. I've been able to introduce all of the components of the program except the balance program. We'll start that next week. 

It's become very obvious that Tates and I need to start working first thing in the morning and have to keep at it until bedtime. We'll get breaks throughout the day and we can integrate much of her program into our lives with the rest of the family but there is no such thing as closing shop early for the next while. Tatum is moving herself around about 5-10 feet each night in her room. We've taken her crib down and she is sleeping on a foam pad on her floor. It's comfy and cozy and is big enough for all of us to snuggle in with her! Sleeping on the floor gives Tatum the opportunity to move as much as she can all day AND all night. 

 We are patterning twice each day and Tatum is on her incline plane whenever she isn't doing the rest of her program, being snuggled or fed. We are all noticing improvement in her strength, endurance and coordination. 

Today's pictures include one of Riley, Peyton and Tatum playing on the IPad in bed this morning, one of Tatum in her highchair last week and a video of us patterning Tatum last week. Our rhythm is a bit off because Tatum is starting to move her own arms, legs and head... not always the way we want her to! Quality isn't great... I took them on my finger print covered IPod! 

 Click the link to see us patterning Tatum. http://youtu.be/XcNnFRHDdB0

Back from Philly with big hope and huge goals! 

 We returned from The Institutes in Philadelphia two weeks ago and my head is spinning! I thought our program was intense beforehand. Yikes.

On day 1 of our visit to Philly, the team at the Institutes examined Tatum and reviewed her medical history. I summarized her progress in my last blog entry. Day 2 of our visit was all about where we go from here. We met with mobility specialists, cognitive therapy specialists, oxygen therapy specialists, a nutritionist and were presented with our new program.

Our initial appointment on day 2 was with Rosalind Doman. She said the following to us: "Families have come to us for decades, looking for hope that we can help their children get well. Some of these families do not have brain injured children and we cannot help them." She then said quite emphatically "Congratulations! Tatum has a brain injury. You can stop worrying now, we can help".  The myriad of emotions that quickly ran through my mind was crazy. In the end, I settled on elated relief. I don't know what we would do if we hadn't found this program.

For the first month we need to focus on two main things:

1. perfect nutrition with special attention being paid to lowering Tatum's Cholesteral, Triglycerides and Liver Enzymes, all of which are elevated and 
2. Tatum's rebreathing program... we need complete 40 maskings each day. 

Tatum's diet requires that we give her a specific amount of fat, proteins, carbs and calories each day. Her plate also has to include a specific combination of meats/legumes, leafy greens, green veggies, other veggies, healthy fats and carbs. Feeding her correctly is a full time job in itself. The benefits of feeding Tatum as the Institutes has prescribed are already so obvious. She is more energetic, more alert, gaining weight and growing well and she loves her food. She is opening her mouth like a bird to eat her incredibly healthy meals. Prior to perfecting Tatum's diet, she moaned through most of her meals and was frequently constipated and struggled to make a bowel movement. She is now pooping several times a day with ease... she's a happy girl!!

The rebreathing or masking therapy is intense. She doesn't love it so it makes it emotionally tough on me to do all day long. Because it is so good for her healing brain, Tatum and I just have to suck it up and go with it! Masking is the answer to so much of the brain development that we need to achieve. We asked our Advocate at the Institutes a number of questions about how to progress Tatum's development in specific areas. His answer every time was "Do the masking 40 times each day".

As we move into month 2 of our program, we will add our reading program back into the mix in it's new intensity, introduce an opportunity for Tatum to express choices each day, have Tatum on her inclined floor all day long as much as possible, introduce a fun new balance program that will develop her vestibular system, reintroduce a tactile and auditory stimulation program and gradually increase the number of patterning sessions she does from 10 minutes each day to 30 minutes each day.

This new program will take us 5-6 hours each day. Tatum's intense therapy program will help us continue to accelerate Tatum's neurological development in an effort to catch her up with her chronological age. It is our hope that if we achieve the goals set out for us that Tatum will be moving herself independently on a flat surface by April 2013 and that we will no longer need the incline floor exercises!

Thank you again to all of our volunteers. We could not do this without your help and the loving support of our family and friends. I will be posting some videos and photos soon... just have to sort through our collection and figure out how to post videos to this blog!