Kevin's Healing Journey: October 2012

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Awesome Hayride

Bestest Funnest Hayride Ever! Up & Down hills and through the mud!

AMAZING Birthday Swimming Surprise

After spending the day at the Columbus Zoo for Kevin's Birthday with the G Family, we spent the night in a hotel with a swimming pool. Of course, swimming in the hotel pool, was the highlight of the weekend for all the cousins. But while all the kids were swimming something AMAZING happend...KEVIN WAS "SWIMMING"!!! Or probably more accurately, staying afloat by egg beatering his legs and moving his right arm and sometimes his left arm in the deep end with no support. It has been over a year since Kevin was in a full size swimming pool where he couldn't just walk around in the pool. So I asked our favorite brain experts how did this happen without any instruction, and he said "A TON OF ORGANIZATION AND MATURITY...and all the crawling, creeping, reflexes, AND (my favorite part), WANTING TO BE LIKE THE OTHERS." This is exactly what this Mama needed as her baby boy celebrated his 8th Birthday!!! Kevin had a grin ear to ear the entire time he was in that pool. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY LITTLE FISH!!!

Happy 8th Birthday - October 6, 2012

Kevin's Best Birthday Ever! We celebrated with the G Family at the Columbus Zoo and Swimming at the hotel. And my mission to find an apple crisp allergen-free for Kevin AND that was tasty for everyone was a success!!!

All Dressed Up

First Football Game

Kevin's 1st Football Game. Our local high school team in the Black & Gold (our favorite colors). Kevin likes the band!

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.