Kevin's Healing Journey: Happy 9th Birthday

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Happy 9th Birthday - October 6, 2013

We had a fabulous weekend at Niagara Falls, Canada to celebrate Kevin's Birthday (and mine).

The original plan to celebrate Kevin's birthday this year was to visit my family and go to Kings Island...but it just didn't seem like a good idea in light of my Dad's recent heart transplant. So one evening about a week and a half before his birthday we were watching Wheel of Fortune and saw a commercial on TV for Niagara Falls. We both thought this would be perfect! We are only a 4 hour drive from Canada, all 3 of us have passports, and we had a free night stay at a hotel. The hotel was AMAZING, you can see the picture below of our view. We received many perks for staying at this hotel too. They gave us a gift card to their restaurant and we found out we could use it for room service so we did and it was fabulous. We had a dining room table in our room that faced the amazing view so we really didn't want to leave our room. They also gave us free breakfast in their restaurant at the buffet. It was so much fun!

But the best part of the weekend, for me, was being able to go on a trip like this with Kevin and have it just be the 3 of us. This was the first time we had ever taken a "pleasure" trip with just the 3 of us. We have traveled to be with family or our trips to Philadelphia twice a year. But never had we gone somewhere without some family with us. I love spending time with family and love to share adventures with them. But another reason we always asked family to be with us was because I wasn't sure if Kevin would appreciate or enjoy the adventure and so if he had family there with him it would be something special for him to enjoy as well. So I found out no extra family was needed, Kevin and I and Jon enjoyed ourselves immensely just being together and seeing the sights. Kevin did enjoy watching the Falls and people watching. There are so many people from all over the world to see at a landmark like Niagara Falls and it is one of my favorite parts too. It was a Happy Birthday indeed!

We rode the BIG Sky Wheel

We LOVED our hotel room & view

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My Blog

This blog was created to keep our family and friends updated on Kevin's healing journey. It is also our hope that others may find this blog to give help and hope to other delayed kids.

About Kevin

They told us Kevin would never walk or talk. But with lots of prayers, hard work, and extra hands, he began walking when he was four years old and we continue to have faith and hope as we wait patiently for his speech to develop. Kevin is now eight years old. He is diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy due to a brain-injury he had before birth that was caused by a stroke. In 2006, before Kevin was 2 years old, we found Glenn Doman’s book "What To Do About Your Brain-Injured Child" that had answers to help children with special needs and developmental delays. We began an individualized home treatment program for Kevin immediately and have been dedicated to our program ever since. We spent three years with the Doman family at The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (IAHP) and now we are with Matthew and Carol Newell at The Family Hope Center (FHC). Twice a year we return to Philadelphia where Kevin receives a neurological evaluation to determine the progress he has made in the last six months. Then they provide us with an individualized, program that puts me in charge to help Kevin develop and reach his fullest potential.

Do You Know a Delayed Child?

The best recommendation we can give to another parent with a special needs or developmentally delayed child (brain-injured, brain-damaged, mentally retarded, mentally deficient, cerebral-palsied, epileptic, autistic, athetoid, hyperactive, attention deficit disordered, developmentally delayed, or down's) is to read Glenn Doman's book What To Do About Your Brain-Injured Child and/or Dr. Coralee Thompson and Dr. Philip Maffetone's book Healthy Brains, Healthy Children. By simply reading these books, you will gain valuable information to help your child which will begin to unlock the potential your child has. And best of all you will learn that there are other options to helping your child that you can do yourself. We would also highly recommend attending the parent course at FHC or IAHP. To read how our journey began and the successful progress Kevin has had refer to the January 2010 blog archive.