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It’s been about a week and a half since James got over his latest illness or a possible reaction to the vaccinations—we’re not really sure what it was. We’re leaning towards a reaction to the vaccinations because it started so quickly after his shots. This is not the first time he’s hade a reaction to a vaccine. I had to look back through the notes that Stacy keeps in his medical binder because I couldn’t remember which vaccine he had a reaction to, or when it happened. We believe it was the rotavirus vaccine back in 2010, although we’re not sure.
The rotavirus is a three-dose vaccine, and he had reactions after the first two doses. He did get other vaccines at the same time as each of those two rotavirus doses, but the other vaccines were different both times. The rotavirus was the only common vaccine he received before he had a reaction. We do not know which vaccine caused the reaction this time around. Maybe it wasn’t a vaccine at all, and it was something else completely. It could have just been a coincidence that he got sick so soon after getting the vaccines. Regardless of what it was, he is better now, and that is all that matters, right?
School
Now that that episode is behind us, let’s get on to our regularly scheduled programming. What’s James been up to? I guess we’ll start with school. I mentioned at the end of the illness/reaction post that he went back to school just in time for his Illinois Special Olympics Young Athletes track meet. Unfortunately, because of the cold, rainy, and snowy weather, the track meet was cancelled. James wasn’t too happy about that.
He did get some good news that cheered him right up, though. His awesome preschool teacher will be his teacher for summer school. To make thing even better, his summer school will only be a couple of blocks away so mommy can walk him there and walk him home…unless it’s raining, of course! He was so excited about staying with his teach for summer school that he got the hiccups:
We hope that he will continue with his therapies in summer school. He’s been doing so good this year that we’d hate to seem him lose his progress over the summer. The pics below are from some of his therapy sessions this past week.
Here he is rolling from his side onto his back:
Here he is standing with the help of his physical therapist:
Here’s another pic of him working with his physical therapist:
We’re extremely proud of how far he has come this year. His physical, occupational, vision, hearing, and technology therapists have all been awesome. I feel like I am missing a therapist. If I am, I apologize.
Orthopedist
James went to see the orthopedic doctor on Friday for a routine checkup. He took a couple of x-rays to see how his scoliosis is doing. His spine will never be straight, but we don’t want it to get any worse. The curvature of the spine is still about the same, but the doc would like to see him in some sort of a brace to keep his back as straight as possible.
We already have a TLSO (thoracic lumbar sacral orthosis), which is a two-piece brace that goes around the torso. The issue that we have with the TLSO is that James has some difficulty breathing with it on. Another option would be some sort of bracing when he is sitting in his chair.
I thought that I had posted a picture of his TLSO when he got it in June of 2012, but I guess I never did. Here is that picture to give you an idea of what it looks like. The two pieces are held together by Velcro straps. The hole in the front is where his g-tube is, so if he were to wear it under his shirt, we can still have access to the g-tube to feed him.
Memorial Day
We spent some time cleaning and power washing the back patio to get ready to have family over for a Memorial Day BBQ tomorrow. It’s supposed to be in the high 80s, so we’ll see if anyone wants to sit outside or if they’d rather stay inside in the air conditioning.
Notice how messy James’ hair is in the above pic? Not anymore! We gave him a little bit of a trim for summer. Daddy got one, too!
Shirts for Sale
We still have quite a few Rollin’ for James shirts left if you are interested. They can be purchased here:
http://www.rollingforjames.com/sponsors-tshirt-sales.html
