Today was a LONG Day!!

Today was the day for us to take Drew for his blood draw and our enrollment meeting with Brain Balance.  It started with Matt and me getting up at 4:30am.  I am most certainly NOT a morning person (and neither is Matt, but don’t tell him I told you).  I got Drew up at about 5:15.  He wasn’t all that happy either.  Before we left he had to pee in a cup, so I managed to get that while he was still half asleep.  Then we loaded up and headed south.  It drizzled the entire way down.  Which is really annoying when you have obnoxious wiper blades!!  We hit Atlanta right about 8:00 or so.  Why, why, why would anyone want to live there?  The traffic was awful!  It took us almost 4 hours to make a less than 3 ½ hour trip!  We got to the lab about 15 minutes late.  I knew the minute I saw the girl that she was not going to be able to get my son’s blood.  I’ve learned just recently that if you chug a bottle of water on your way to have blood drawn it plumps up your veins.  Well, because we needed a concentrated urine sample, Drew’s fluid intake was limited yesterday.  And I knew he would not drink water on the way down.  He doesn’t like plain water.  So I knew it was going to be a challenge sticking him.  And I was right!  Poor little guy!  So we left the lab with step one of the day a failure.  We didn’t have to be at Brain Balance until 11:30 so we stopped for breakfast.  After breakfast, we headed over to Roswell.  We got there about 20 minutes early.  For those of you that know me well, you might want to write that down…because you know I am NEVER early!  Then Brain Balance was running about 30 minutes late…oy!  I talked to Amy in the front office when we got there and told her that I was not going back to that lab and they would have to figure out how to get his blood from Children’s Hospital in Knoxville to whatever lab they wanted.  They are sending me the blood kit to take to the hospital.  WHY didn’t we just do that in the first place???  Anyway, we had our meeting where we were given his home program.  I have to say that I am much more at peace after this meeting.  I have been so very stressed out about this.  On the way down, Matt said to me "your voice just oozes anxiety."  Well, duh!  Anyway, back to the home program.  We have to do 12 different exercises with multiple steps/reps 3 times a day.  He has to listen to right brain music through his left ear only for 30 minutes a day and he has to wear glasses with the right side blacked out (or an eye patch) for 30 minutes a day.  On top of this, we have to do our best to limit his screen time to 30 minutes a day.  This one is the biggie!!  This kid LOVES screen time!  TV, DVD, Wii, iPad, iPhone, you name it!  And that is totally our fault.  We have used them as a crutch to get through the day.  When he does get screen time, he has a cool pair of blue glasses that he gets to wear. 

In case you didn’t know, blue is a right brain color so by wearing the blue glasses he is firing the right brain even though screen time is a left brain activity.  This brain stuff is so cool!! 

We will know more about the nutrition part of the equation after we get his blood drawn and those results back.  Amy eased my mind about this a little bit too.  She said some families don’t have to avoid much while others do.  It was the first I had heard this.  I had only read about the ones that had to make everything from scratch!  I’m hoping we are in the “avoid less” category but of course I will do whatever it takes to get my boys brain balanced even if it means making everything from scratch!!  We loaded back up in the car for our 3 hour drive home. 

I am so excited to start this program and see what the future holds for my precious baby!  As a very dear friend said to me in a text this morning “today is the first day of Drew’s new brain”!  I love that!!!

And here’s a little brain fact that you might not know.  Did you know that our sense of smell is the only sense that has a direct path to the brain and the only thing that doesn’t cross hemispheres?  So while we will be stimulating Drew’s left side, he will do his smell therapy through his right nostril!  I told you this brain stuff was cool!!

What Is Brain Balance?

The Groundbreaking Brain Balance Approach

Brain Balance^TM Achievement Centers offer a cutting-edge, drug-free approach to help children improve their ability to learn academically, socially and emotionally.

We don’t just work with your child’s strengths or compensate for a weakness.  We tackle your child’s issue head on, by addressing the root cause at the most fundamental level.  The Brain Balance Program® integrates three key pillars of brain development – sensory motor exercises, cognitive activities and nutritional guidance – to address the root cause of most learning and developmental issues.  The unique integrated approach is what makes Brain Balance different and so effective.

And I just love their motto:

We believe that within every child resides…

The Body of an Olympic Athlete,

The Brain of a Scientist,

The Mind of a Poet,

The Hands of an Artist,

The Ear of a Composer,

The Heart of a Saint…

Never stop believing that your child has Unlimited Potential!

Taken from their website www.brainbalancecenters.com

What does all of that mean? 

As you know we all have a dominant hemisphere.  What happens in children like Drew is that one side has “taken over” and the other side is weak.  This is bad.  When we had Drew’s assessment done in July we were told that his delay was in his right hemisphere and that is was severe.  The other thing that we learned is that we are all born with 8 primitive reflexes to help us survive.  Those reflexes are supposed to develop and then “drop off” (have a score of 0) before the age of 2.  Drew only has 2 of the 8 that have a score of 0.  Two of them have a score of 1, one has a score of 3, and 3 have a score of 4. Clear as mud?  What this means is that we need to develop those reflexes so they will drop to a 0.  This is where Brain Balance comes in.  We will have a program written just for Drew with exercises specific to his delays.  In addition to the exercises, he will have a blood/urine analysis done to test for food allergies and/or sensitivities and any vitamin/mineral deficiencies/high levels.  We will then be given a nutrition program for him to follow based on those results.  We will be going for his blood draw and our enrollment meeting on Friday.

Where Do I Start??

First of all, let me warn you that I have never blogged before. For that matter, I’ve never even kept a journal so this is all very foreign to me.  More than likely it’s going to sound like gibberish.  The main reason I wanted to start a blog is for me, so I can document the changes I see in my son.  It will also keep our families and friends up to date on Drew’s progress.  I have also decided to make this blog public so that if there are other families out there struggling it is my hope that this blog will be helpful to them.

So…where do I start?  It all started in 1996 when this girl met this guy and they fell in love…just kidding (about going back so far, not the falling in love).  My husband, Matt, and I have been married 15 years and we have 3 children; Taylor, Abby and Drew.  Drew is the reason for this blog.

He was born with Macrocephaly (an enlarged head), a diffusely thin corpus collosum (the channel between the right and left hemispheres), diminished white matter and what they call communicating external hydrocephalus (extra cranial fluid in the canals outside the brain).  We learned all of this between 9 months and 2 years of age.  At 3 he was diagnosed with PDD-NOS, an Autism Spectrum Disorder.    He also has sensory processing disorder and GI problems.  He has been on Miralax every day since he was about 9 months old.  There’s so much more but I won’t bore you with any more details.  He is now 9 years old.

Matt and I have always said “no regrets” when it comes to his care.  Which brings us to Brain Balance (BB).  I had 2 different people who don’t know each other tell me about BB.  When this happens I don’t find it a coincidence so I looked into it.  I took Drew down to a Brain Balance Center in Atlanta for an evaluation in July 2013.  We were told that he was right brain delayed (I’ll explain that later).  We didn’t start right away because we didn’t know how we would pay for it.  We finally decided that we couldn’t afford not to do it…”no regrets”.