Neuro Reorg Week 3

I have to say one of the most gratifying comments we have recieved in the past few weeks was from our amazing Early Childhood Teacher who I gave a copy of our first NR post to.  She simply said, "we always suspected K operated in fight or flight mood most of the time".  When T&I started the NR road, we were convinced in our own minds this path was really what K needed.  To hear from our Early Childhood Teacher that feedback from our NR practicioner fell directly in line with their assessment felt really really good.  I ask myself about 1000 times a day if we are doing what is right for K, and not being in the mental health profession, it is hard deciphering between all the therapies that are out there.  To get a confirmation from someone that knows our daughter and has worked with her daily over the past school year, that we are on the right path really put my mind at peace.  It is a long and difficult path, however.  I was at a trauma mama meeting the other night and I mentioned that we are doing NR with K and the therapy is about 2 hours a day.  Another mama asked, with 4 kiddos, how we found 2 hours a day to do the therapy?  Without hesitation, I answered, "What other choice do we have, other than to find the time?  This will affect the rest of her life if we don't address the foundation issues she has in her brain, we have to make the time".  I just pray God will give us the strength and patience to get through it.  I had an opportunity to discuss this with our fantastic summer tutor A this week as well in addition to providing her with a little background on NR, because I havn't dumped enough info on her yet LOL!  (who knew our kids came with so many instructions!).  Thinking of having a little sign made up for our front door "Please excuse our mess.  Brain Rescrambling in Progress"

From the Land of the Weird

We are starting to notice a few strange things going on with K as we continue on our NR journey.  One of the weirder things is one of the exercises meant to help her two sides of the brain talk better.  As we pass through the midline, she starts blinking quickly or does strange movements with her mouth.  A few of the other families are having similar reactions, so it doesn't seem all that unusual, but it is definately weird to watch.  The professionals are saying that it is a sign that the two hemipheres of the brain are not fulling intigrated or connected when this is happening.  The creeping has been 25 min's a day of pure torture, she hates it and fights it every min.  When we read that some families have been doing creepings for 6 months it is pretty depressing and the constant battle of the wills over the creeping time is exhausting.  There are times when it appears to be getting better and more fluid, but then it goes right back to an uncoordinated mess.  Her moods also seem all over the place, like the filter has been removed and she is just exploding emotion she has little control over at everything.  Again, this seems to be pretty common with other families in that you take one step back before moving forward.  She was trying to hurt sister this weekend, so I was keeping her close and it just spiralled out of control ugly really fast as she tried to manipulate me into letting her go over by sis by telling me she was fine, but then would grab for sister the second I moved.  She went from cackling to crying to screaming to laughing, it was like emotion soup in her head.  I ended up taking her inside and she just sobbed and sobbed as i rocked her.  wow!  It was a lot to take in but I was able to employ the "C" for curiosity and the "E" for empathy at least.  For now, just hanging in there and trudging slowly ahead...we hope.... 

Weekend Came and Went

The first weekend with the new neuro reorg went well.  I think we got in the majority of the goals and actually did the poses twice yesterday (120 repetitions each for 3 positions), which was the first time since we started.  We are getting more efficient and K is starting to learn what she needs to do to get it done.  T noticed that she is blinking excessivly when she is doing them, so we arn't sure if it is dust or something (because we are on the floor), or if there is actually something triggering in her brain.  The creeping is still HARD.  We are finding less and less to motivate her enough to do the creeping and she doesn't seem to be getting any more efficient at it and until she does, the 25 min goal will remain.  She has a goal of 5 min's of crawling, but when you do let her crawl, its like you open the gate and then she won't creep anymore or cheats the creep as a crawl.  Her behavior in general is still off, from what it has been over the last few months and I'm not really sure why.  A lot of defiance and moaning about things that would seem pretty minor to the rest of us.  The big trigger this weekend was over chapstick.  N and I returned from the store and we didn't even get out of the garage before K was screaming at both of us for not getting her some chapstick too at the store.  I waited for her to calm down and asked her if she thought I would get N chapstick without getting her one? No, she replied, I asked her if she thought i might have one in my bag for her? Yes, she replied, I then asked her if she made a good choice by screaming at us like that?  No she said as her face sunk.  It took her the better part of a day, asking constantly about it, trying to manipulate, to earn it by making better choices.  In the end, I think it was one of the more effective logical consequences we have done.  She clearly understood that her approach to the situation had caused her not to get something she really really wanted and as hard as she tried, she couldn't blame me or her sister for it.   I could see the wheels spinning though... I had not forgotten about her..... I had not bought her sister something without getting something for her too, oh what to do!  She was perplexed, truely perplexed, it was interesting to observe how she tired to wrap her head around what happened then tried to repair what she had done.  Sunday Religous Education class brought another challenge, she had been doing well all year because the class is short and there are usually lots of fun crafty projects like she really enjoys, but last week she was sent out of class for putting her hands on the other kids during story time and not listening to the teacher, well, she got to sit out front with one on one attention which is great if you are trying to reward bad choices.  So we had a talk this week with the teacher, and even though it was the last week, we wanted to prevent any additional rewarding of bad choices.  We set up for them to come and get us if need be and explained the importance of ignoring behaviors so they arn't reinforced, but they were in big group with a lot of activities and it ended with no drama.  Big ENT appointment this week for K's surgery, so lots on the horizon!

Neuro Reorg Day 3

Oh man, exhausted doesn't describe it.  Our routines have been flipped on their head as we try and squeeze as much of our daily neuro reorg stuff into an already packed schedule.  Weekday morning are tough to incorporate anything into except a few mins of the 25 min goal of creeping each day.  I have forgot more things in the last three days than in the last month!  While we accounted for the fact that we had about 2 hours at night to do the exercises, what we didn't account for was the fact that K's endurance is terrible in everyday activities and trying to get her to do 25 min's of stomach crawling is really really exhausting for her, especially since her creep is a mess.  Surprising, as we have gone through the exercises, we were convinced, because the boys went through many of the milestones with us that they would rock the creeping work, or NOT!  We knew N didn't walk until she was almost 2, which made us feel that she might benefit from some of the exercises, or NOT!  Surprise again, she floated across the floor like she had wheels under her!  My jaw dropped and she was lightning fast, it was awesome to watch, her run is awkward to say the least, but it is good to know that she has a good foundation to work form.   Heading into the weekend will be interesting.  Friday is normally a sit back and relax night, but again, it was neuro reorg from dinner to bed.  We will see how proactive we will be this weekend at trying to stretch things out over the entire day and not wait until evening to get everything accomplished.  No rest for the weary! 

Neuro Reorganization Day 1

We had our much anticipated meeting for K's neuro reorg today.  The appointment was close to 3 hours long and I am kind of feeling like my brain is melting.  There is a lot to remember.  The long and short of it is that K's  lower brain is not functioning as it should, so like a building with a poor foundation, we can keep trying to build on it, but if we don't fix the foundation, everything will remain shaky.  Importantly, it came out that our NR will let us know when the appropriate time to start therapy with her will be.  Right now because of K's processing skills, there wouldn't be anything to gain from therapy.  We need to fix the foundation first.  One of the key things we learned is that K didn't have the foundations in utero or in her first months after birth that she should have.  This is reflected in birth reflexes that she is still retaining.  These should have been lost within a few months of birth, but she still shows at least 4 of these reflexes.   On the next level of her brain which is the PONS, 1-4 months old, is key to deep emotion, fight or flight, feeling safe and secure.  It is likely that she didn't develop the PONS level correctly, so to her, the world is not a safe place and she stays in that fight or flight mode constantly.  This reflects also in her eye contact, her horizontal and vertical eye tracking skips and she can not converge on an object, but instead diverges, this is part of her hypervigilance as she has issues paying attention because she is always distracted looking for potential threats.  Another major connection is her inability to sense pain, overreacting to some and underreacting to other, this pain center also ties to empathy, if she can't sense pain in herself, she can not feel empathy for others or make the emotional connections.  On of the other exercises shows she is hardwired to the flight or flight reaction when placed under any stress.  Her brain reverts to the PONS level and she shuts down.  Our NR also ID'ed quite a few midbrain issues as well.  For now, we are going to be working on the PONS level as that will likely cause some of the midbrain issues that she saw to fall into place.  Based on the evaluation, the issue we rated highest she is having, and the plan for rebulding the basics, she developed a series of daily activities we will be working with K on.  They are quite extensive and there is a learning curve involved, but so far, K was pretty cooperative.  Our follow up is in 3 months, so hopefully we will make some good progress over the summer with her home with us 4 day a week.  Time for some rest and tomorrow, trying to incorporate some NR into our morning routine