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.
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!!
I'm so excited for you all! Thoughts and prayers for yall as you begin this journey.
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