The Gospel According to Alex

Playing with Matthew, taking a break from preaching the Word. :)

Alex wanted to "read" the gospel of the day in bed, before sleeping. I give him a book and say go ahead and g'nite. 

A few minutes later I'm in the next room and I hear: "and Jesus said, no more monkeys jumping on the bed. The gospel of the Lord."

Alex's new best friend . . . Carter the therapy dog!

Alex's teacher trains therapy dogs, and today one of them, Carter, came for a visit. Alex was scared of him at first (his normal reaction around dogs), but quickly warmed up, thanks to the expert help of his teacher and EA. Here is the note that his teacher sent with the video: "Here is the video of Alex and Carter.  I am amazed at how quickly Alex became comfortable with him.  I loved watching Alex handle the leash.  Too bad I don't have video of him walking Carter."

Apparently Alex "walked the dog" during recess by holding onto the leash. I put that in quotes because Alex came home talking about walking the dog, but in reality it sounds like the dog walked him, pulling him all over the playground! Anyway, here is the video of Alex petting the dog in the classroom:

'Thank you for your assistance': Orphanage elevators working again

Well, Alex is home sick today (actually he looks completely fine, but he was hot in the middle of the night, so he is staying home as a precaution -- loving playing video games and being waited on by Dad, lol).

But I wanted to get online and let you know that we got an e-mail from the orphanage today, thanking us for the $600, which they used to fix the elevators (!):

Дорогие Джеральд и Сьюзен!

     Спасибо огромное Вам за оказание помощи это дало нам возможность отремонтировать лифты, на которых подымают деток на колясках на второй этаж.

     Мы рады, что Саша приобрел семью, счастье и любовь в Вашей семье.

     Вышлите на e-mail Ваше семейное фото.

     С уважением Татьяна Ивановна, дети, сотрудники.

Here is the same message as translated by Google (assuming you don't read Russian!):

Dear Gerald and Susan!

Thank you very much for your assistance it gave us the opportunity to repair the elevators, which are raising kids in wheelchairs on the second floor.

We are delighted that Alex has acquired family, happiness and love in your family.

Send e-mail to your family photos.

Yours Tatiana, children, employees.

Amazing to think that $600 would help them get the elevators fixed, but wow, what an important contribution -- so much safer than going up and down all those stairs! Thank you to all who contributed to the cause. We will be continuing to look for opportunities to help them out again, and will post here when we do so.

A;ex at school

Here is some video of Alex at school...a few short clips of him at work, followed by a couple of longer, low-quality clips of him singing very enthusiastically in the school musical.

Selective dorsal rhizotomy update

Well, we finally got a decision on Alex’s selective dorsal rhizotomy. The Mayo team has decided not to proceed with the SDR at this time. An SDR will remain “on the table” as an option to consider over the next year or two, but only if we see significant improvement in the strength and control of Alex’s torso and head.

Here’s what we understand about the no-SDR decision. Right now, the Mayo team is observing significant weakness in Alex’s torso and neck; they also note that he fatigues very rapidly when he is walking. By relaxing the muscles in his legs and lower torso, an SDR would make it even more difficult for him to maintain an upright posture. He would definitely recover some strength and control over the year following an SDR, but the concern is whether he would be able to recover enough strength and control to be functional. In the words of his doctor, Dr. Brandenburg, his physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) doctor: “The concern is that if we take away the tone in his legs and we don’t have the tone in his head or trunk, he won’t be able to stand in his walker.” In order to be more comfortable that he would function better, not worse, after an SDR, the Mayo team wants to see a higher baseline of torso and neck strength prior to giving an SDR a green light.

Will he ever have an SDR? Maybe; the option will remain on the table over the next year or two, but it is definitely not a sure thing. The feeling is that he would have to demonstrate a lot of improvement. Toward that end, his doctor is suggesting that we really focus on seeing how much stronger he can get in the next year, and especially over the summer. She notes that most kids have more than a year and a half of therapy to build up their strength prior to an SDR; Alex hasn’t had that, nor has he had the benefit of being active when he was younger, so it is possible that with continued intensive therapy over the next year, we will continue to see good improvement. But again, it doesn’t seem “likely” at this point.

Will he ever walk? Based on what we’re seeing from the gait lab analysis, it seems unlikely that he will ever walk without a walker. Even an SDR or other intervention would probably just improve his function in a walker, not get him out of it. Moreover, especially as he gains weight, Alex’s preference is probably going to be to use a wheelchair. As Dr. Brandenburg said, for him, walking uses the same amount of energy as running does for us. (We’re also aware that improvements in robotic prosthesis technology over the next couple of decades will probably see him walking at some point down the road; see this article for where that technology is at now.)

What’s next? The short version is that we will be zeroing in on strengthening the torso and neck muscles. We’re also going to be having conversations with Dr. Brandenburg and his school and Winona Health medical team about how to move forward to improve Alex’s daily functioning, so that he can be “the best Alex he can be,” as his doctor put it. He is going to get back on Botox and phenol (he will probably go for that on May 8), and over the summer we will be ramping up his baclofen. We will be looking at his equipment needs, too. Down the road, we will revisit the possibility of an SDR; other options that Mayo is interested in considering include a tendon release (cutting tendons to reduce scissoring) and a baclofen pump (implanting a pump to deliver baclofen directly to the affected muscles).

I want to say that Susan and I are not disappointed by this outcome. We have known from the beginning that walking independently was not a sure thing for Alex, so this doesn’t come as a surprise. Our goal has always been to help Alex realize his full potential: to participate in the life of community as much as possible, to contribute his gifts to the world, to love and to be loved. That is our focus, and the particular way that happens is less important. One of the chapters in Susan’s new book looks at the theology of disability, the upshot being that even disability can be used by God to disclose the divine. Not that God wants Alex to be disabled, necessarily, but his plan is to take that disability and turn it upside down and inside out, so that something good comes out of it. We are privileged to be able to participate in that plan, and to witness all the “good fruit” coming from Alex’s life.

Gait analysis clinic

"This is not as fun as it looks."

Earlier this week Alex went to Mayo for a gait analysis clinic. It was a LONG day. "LOTS of appointments," he kept saying.

The big one was the actual gait lab, which involved four adults (not including me) working to make Alex the bionic boy for a few minutes. After taking lots of measurements where he tried to stretch, extend, and bend as far as he could, they began attaching microphones to his legs and little silver balls all over his body, but especially his legs. Cords were attached to the microphones, and when he moved a leg, the computer registered the strength of the movement in a variety of muscles. By the time has was all "hooked up," they picked him up and asked him to walk (with support on each side). He would walk two second, then one of the silver balls would pop off (because he is scissoring so badly all this electronic gear is getting bumped). They would redo, set him up to walk, and we'd get two-four seconds, and boom--stop, lost a ball, or lost the signal on this microphone, etc.. I honestly thought it was a bit touch and go, because Alex was getting tired, and they were having a hard time getting the readings they needed. In the end, they said they didn't get everything they wanted, but they got what they needed. Then they took bionic gear off Alex, and asked him to walk (with one person support) for videotape. He did better on that. So, two hours after we started there, we were off....

Reattaching electrogear in the walking....

After lunch, we went to "Mayo 16 East" for appointments with the social worker, his PM&R doctor, and an assessing PT. Oh, and a pelvic xray. The xray was short, but the appointments were all an hour long. Alex tends to be very good at these appts, but he was really flaming out by the end of this day.

Anyway, our PM&R doctor spoke to us more about the selective dorsal rhizotomy, and if I get anything wrong here, blame me, not her. The way it is done at Mayo is that these surgeries occur on Fridays, and total going into surgery and back in recovery time is about 4-5 hours. The surgery involves going into the spine and isolating nerves that send messages to legs. They want to cut the nervelets that send the spastic messages. They also cur sensory nerves, not motor (?) nerves. They test each nervelet as they do this. They do not cut more than 70% of the nervelets--and in general, as few as they can. But even if an area has 100% spasticity, they only cut 70%. After that point, it is very hard for a person to recover strength. You can read about selective dorsal rhizotomy in great detail at the St. Louis Children's Hospital -- pictures and everything.

She said he would initially seem much worse--kids who have this done are very "floppy." The initial recovery is to mend the spine, but she said they do light physical therapy the day after surgery (very light). And epidural is helping a lot Saturday and Sunday. Monday, barring complications, we go into a 3 HOURS OF REHAB routine 5 days a week for two weeks. Weekends are off. Then we get busted loose and we continue 5 days a week PT at home through Winona rehab services...although 45 minute sessions then. She said the daily PT (except weekends) is to be expected for the first three months, and the full effect of the rhizotomy would not be seen for a year.

In terms of surgery recovery, this is shorter than the rhizotomy that is done at Gillette (6 week in hospital recovery). She explained why and the pros and cons of each procedure, and I could see a great debate among medical professionals about which to do (she explained them very objectively, I must say). We asked if she was confident with the results she sees at Mayo, and she said absolutely.

They have not decided to do this yet. March 20, the doctors there meet to discuss whether he is a candidate for the procedure. (Basically, if he is too dystonic--that is, he has too much mixed tone--this will not help and will make things worse.) The assessing PT was friendly but concerned that he has very low tone in his trunk. She volunteered that she was seeing him at the end of a long day, never a good time to make assessments, and said she would check the video that the gait lab produced. We also talked about how this has been an issue since we adopted him, but despite appearances, he has made real improvements. So on March 20, the PM&R doctor said she would call us and let us know what the medical staff decided. And then would ask us whether we wanted to proceed. If we say yes, we get to visit Mayo A LOT in the next few weeks for pre-op procedures and another MRI. Surgery would be on a Friday in May; we would hope for May 2, but we are not guaranteed that date, as these things are difficult to schedule. After the surgery, one of us will stay with Alex in Rochester for 2.5 weeks.

They are all talking like it will be worth it in the long run. The advantages of this surgery for Alex is that it will help prevent (more) muscle contractures, decrease spasticity pain, and give him a better shot at walking well in a walker (when Jerry raised walking with crutches/canes, she said she didn't really see that in his future, which doesn't surprise me). And so, we wait. We're depending on the doctors here to make a good decision about whether this works for Alex or not. If he is not a candidate, we're back to Botox injections and maybe a baclofen pump (a move they and we are not thrilled about perusing).

If you want to see more of the gait lab, see the video below.
--Susan

Alex "reads" Biscuit Goes to School

Alex has loved books ever since we first introduced him to them at the orphanage -- he loves just flipping through them, for starters; it kept him occupied for maybe six hours on the long tip back to the United States from Ukraine. Once he was home, flipping through a big book was one of his favorite things to do to relax. The bigger the book, the better! Our pastor even noted it at his baptism.

In the past few months, he has also begun to show some good indicators of pre-literacy, such as:

• Asking what words say
• Identifying certain letters of the alphabet and the sound they make
• Following narratives in stories
• Pretending to read by reciting narratives from memory, using pictures as cues

The video shows an example of this last accomplishment -- although really, it wasn't his best performance. He may have been distracted by the audience (video camera plus a visiting friend).

Alex's desire to read is great, and we have no doubt he will get there, someday -- but his progress is doing to be slow. One thing that the doctors at the Mayo Clinic recently figured out is that he has a visual processing disorder that prevents him from putting the parts of a picture into a whole -- so for instance, distinguishing the difference between the capital letter I and a T is challenging for him. His occupational therapist has started working with him to identify the tops and bottoms of letters and numbers, and to break individual letters down into their constituent parts, e.g., to look for the individual strokes that distinguish letters from one another.

In the meantime, we're enjoying watching his enthusiasm for books!

$600 on its way to Ukraine orphans

Photo collage by Adrienne, Alex's PCA

As I write this, our friend (and fellow graduate of the Ukrainian adoption families class of '12) is winging her way to Ukraine--for the third time, mind you. While she's there, she and her husband will be adopting four children, including one from Alex's institution. And when she visits the institution, she will bring along the $600 we raised, with many generous contributions.

Please pray for "Renee" and her family. The next couple of months are going to be challenging, even if all goes well. It's a good thing they have a spirit of adventure and a deep faith.


We'll keep you posted when we learn more about how the money is used; in the meantime, you can follow her blog at But By Grace....

A gift for the children of Alex's institution

Hello, everyone.  We have an opportunity and ask for your help.

We have a friend who is going to Ukraine in one month, and will be in the town Alex's institution is in.  She has agreed to carry over money from us (and our friends) and hand it to the director of the institution as a gift for the children there.

When we took Alex home, we left behind more than one hundred children, ages 4-16 (mostly), all with severe disabilities. Some are available for adoption (interested? talk to us!), but many, most, are not.  The director is a very responsible woman who is trying her best to provide care for all these young people, and has done a lot to transform the institution (e.g., adding electricity, planting extensive gardens and orchards, adding playground equipment). But Ukraine does not fund these institutions well, so there is a lot of making do on very low funds--the diet is the diet of the poor, the windows need replacing but that is expensive, any "extras" in that orphanage are usually donated rather than acquired. We donated Alex's care-giving funds (they came from the state with our adoption) to the institution, and the director said she was going to buy meat with it. Meat is rare in the diet of these kids, which is one reason Alex was "morbidly iron-deficient" when we brought him home. The director was very interested in us seeing the receipt, offered that we could come and observe the purchase, etc. This is all to say that the money is needed, it is well spent, and she spends it on the children.

Wiring money to this small town in the middle of nowhere is a lot more difficult than you might imagine (we've done it before). So this is a great opportunity.

We need to get the money to our friend as soon as possible. We will be making a small donation of our own; if you are interested in joining us, you can send donations via the Paypal button on the sidebar or mail it to us at 664 Winona Street, Winona, Minnesota, 55987. We will accept donations until Jan. 24, and then send the money on its way through our friend.

Thanks for even considering this, folks. I'm afraid this isn't the sort of donation you can write off on your taxes, but you can make children in a very difficult situation a little more comfortable and happy. Pass the word if you know someone else who wishes to help.

God bless,
Susan and Jerry

Alex gets a new Tripp Trapp high chair

About a month ago, Alex got a new Stokke Tripp Trapp chair to better position him at the table. The design is ingeniously simple, as you can see from this video (which comes with an extra helping of Alex/teddy bear cuteness on the side):

Previously, Alex was sitting in a Wenzelite Seat2Go strapped into a regular kitchen chair. It was bulky to move, and because there was no foot rest, every time his spasticity made him straighten out his body (which happens every time he gets excited), his butt would scooch forward a little, which would leave him in a slouched position. It also forced him into a reclining position, and was difficult to clean because it was made of fabric. The Tripp Trapp chair is light, gets him right up to the table in a good position, and is easy to clean.

Contents of the box

It’s relatively easy to assemble; I figured it out in about 45 minutes. You can price them at Amazon, although you might find them cheaper elsewhere. Thanks to Alex's godparents for once again stepping in to help out!

I love you...SO much!

Susan posted this to Facebook, so you might have already seen it there, but it seemed worth cross-posting here as well:

A recent Alex moment: Alex got a big bang on his head (accident) while we were visiting relatives, and began to cry (very unusual for him, he does not cry--so he was hurt!). My other kids ran to get me, and I came out and took care of him (ended up holding him for an hour, although he was calm after a few minutes). He's been processing this for days now, although the bump doesn't seem to hurt him.

Alex: Mom, why you go outside for me?
Me: Why do you think, Alex?
Alex (whispers): Because I was crying.
Me: Yes, you were crying because you were hurt, right?
Alex: Yes. But why you come?
Me: Because you are my little boy and I want to take care of you. Because I love you.
Alex (smiling big): SO much.

I think he is processing this because he likes hearing me say that: I want to take care of you. I love you. (and he always adds "SO much.")

Alex trains for the U.S. Winter Olympics luge team

 

Big announcement! Drumroll, please! After witnessing Alex’s stunning performance on the sledding hill on Sunday in -20 degree Fahrenheit (windchill factor) weather, we have decided to allow Alex to fulfill his aspiration to join the U.S. Winter Olympics luge team! As you can see from the attached video, he’s a natural. Not even a major wipeout could keep him down! No, he was ready to “do it again” right away!

Seriously, Alex did enjoy sledding a lot more this year than last year. For the most part he went down with one of his siblings or alone, backwards (facing uphill). As long as he was sent down straight, he did fine. (At one point you will see me advising him to go down straight to avoid flipping; of course, in retrospect, that was a dumb thing to say!)

Coming up soon, we’ll be posting Alex’s newest adaptive seating solution—a Tripp Trapp chair.

Now for the highlights reel:

And finally, the hot chocolate:

A Sweet Moment

I put Alex to bed tonight and he said (as he always does) "You going to work now?" (He means work on the computer in my room.)  I said "A little, but I want to go to bed soon because I don't feel good.  I am sick."  Deep concern.  "Oh no, Mom.  Where do you hurt?"  "My head hurts and my tummy hurts.  I'll be OK, I just feel sick."  He reached out his hand to touch my forehead (like the sign of the cross--we do thatwith our kids before they go to sleep).  I asked, "do you want to pray for me tonight?" He said "Yes..."  Then he folded his hands and said:

"God, please help. Mom sick, help her get better.  Better in head and in tummy.  Amen."

I gave him a big hug.  Not only was it a heartfelt prayer, it was a pretty extended train of thoughts expressed at once for him.

The Great Modular Wheelchair Ramp Saga

After sixteen months of bumping Alex up and down our front steps (while holding the storm door open) every time he needed to get to the school bus or our car, we finally installed a wheelchair ramp—yay!

I didn’t find much online when I went to research what it would take to get a wheelchair ramp on the front of our house, so forgive the detail of this rather long post—a lot of it is provided for others who might be looking for similar information and who might benefit from our experience.

I suppose there’s another reason for going into detail about what it took to get Alex his wheelchair ramp. What we’ve learned over the past eighteen months is that people with physical disabilities live in a parallel world—one in which everything is about ten times harder to accomplish than it would normally be.

Heck, getting a wheelchair ramp—just to be able to get in and out of the house safely—proved to be an epic saga, full of ups and downs. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

 

More practice standing against a wall! | CP Physical Therapy | Hold On Tight!

Remember that video of Alex practicing standing against a wall a few weeks ago? Well, this has been one of his favorite PT activities at home ever since, and he has been getting better at it. Take a look:



By the way, the "big boots" he's referring to halfway through the video are the new boots that his sister got from the store--his mom was coming downstairs with them.

The big question, of course, is whether this standing will eventually turn into walking. Maybe, maybe . . . there's a lot that goes into standing, and he's putting all the different pieces together. Besides being able to balance once he's up, he needs to learn how to move from a sitting or prone position into a standing position. We're trusting that the selective dorsal rhizotomy procedure that he will undergo this spring at Mayo will open the door for him to make big gains. Developing a sense of balance will be good preparation for the intensive work he will be doing next summer.

Getting ready for the new wheelchair ramp by practicing with threshold obstacles | PT demonstration

Once a month, Alex's school physical therapist does a home visit to teach us (parents and PCAs) different physical therapies. This month, she showed us how she's helping Alex "power over" threshold obstacles so he can get up ramps safely and efficiently -- a good thing, since we are installing our own ramp for him!



And here Alex is watching the workers assembling the modular aluminum wheelchair ramp in front of our house -- he jumped every time they used a power tool, which is why he's smiling!

I'm working on a post and video about the construction and assembly of this wheelchair ramp.

Adopting Alex is now Hold On Tight!

Alex wearing his "Hold On Tight" t-shirt, given to him by his bus driver (right).

Just a quick note to let you know that we're updating the Adopting Alex blog and Facebook page. A good eighteen months after actually adopting Alex, it seemed like it was time to move on.

But as we contemplated how to do that, we realized that people are still interested in Alex's story -- the old friends who helped us adopt Alex in the first place, the new friends who have helped with his transition, and people we don't even know who have stumbled across his story online. So rather than delete the old Adopting Alex blog or let it go stale, we decided to give it a facelift.

Besides giving the website a new look, it now has its own address: www.holdalex.com. (Don't worry, all your old links will automatically redirect.) We've also started a dedicated Hold On Tight! Youtube channel for people who want to follow Alex's progress that way without being subjected to random video of our family birthday celebrations. Visit the channel to subscribe.

Those few hardy souls who are braving the wilderness of Google Plus can subscribe to the Hold On Tight! Google Plus page to get updates from this blog.

We'll try to update weekly for as long as people seem interested.

Oh . . . wondering about the name change? Over the summer, Alex attended an extended academic year program through the public school system to help him catch up, academically and developmentally. Well, his bus driver during that month-long program was so tickled that Alex would shout "Hold on tight!" every time the bus went over a bump, he actually had a t-shirt custom-made for Alex with that phrase on it. It was an endearing gesture . . . and an apt description for the amazing journey Alex -- and our whole family -- has been on.

Hold on tight, folks -- here we go!

PT demonstration | Standing tall with support from a wall

One of the highlights of today's physical therapy session was seeing Alex stand on his own, without any equipment--well, except for the support of a wall. Get his "Joe Cool" act!

PT: Moving from a quadruped position to a tall kneeling position

Alex demonstrates moving from a quadruped (hands and knees) position to a tall kneeling position, with assistance. The purpose of this exercise is to develop the back extensors and greater trunk control.


Besides having "high tone" in his leg abductor muscles,Alex has dystonia in his trunk muscles--yet another consequence of his spastic cerebral palsy.

Notice how Alex is interested in dumping those pieces and cleaning them up again! His PT is right when she says he's a great cleaner-upper at home!

This was Alex 16 months ago

You know, after more than a year of having "Sasha" home, it's sometimes hard to remember how much progress Alex has made . . . until you go back and look at those orphanage videos. So, just take a few minutes to compare these to the videos in the last post (from his birthday):







It's simply amazing what sixteen months have done to transform this boy. Notice how very childlike he seems -- especially notice the fascination with dropping the wand in the first video, a sort of infantile developmental task. Notice his environment -- very nonverbal. He's spoken to, but rarely speaks; when he did, his Russian was almost always deemed unintelligible by Russian speakers both in country and back here. It's amazing to compare this practically nonverbal child of sixteen months ago to the kid who chats up a storm with anyone who will listen today.

If anyone ever doubts the importance of giving kids the right environment in early childhood, they should take a look at these videos and then compare them to the kid we have today -- the kid who has emerged thanks to the dedication of an amazing team of professionals in the ISD 861 school district, his amazing PCAs, and the loving influence of his siblings.