Wrist Wraps: The Unexpected Solution to Sensory Issues

So I went through a phase several months back when I was doing a lot of product testing.  Companies would send me their products, I test them out, then I'd blog, Tweet, or Instagram about whatever I was using.

For the most part, most everything was good.  Occasionally, I'd find something so wonderful I'd buy more when I ran out.
One  of those unexpected items were wrist wraps (If you go onto Amazon you can find the for under $10).  If you don't lift weights, you probably don't know what they are. But the concept is simple.  It's a thick elastic band, much like an ace bandage, that wraps around your wrists and Velcros at the end.  It's designed to strengthen your wrists when you're lifting heavy weights.  Since my kids are big into lifting because of sports, I decided to get a pair of wrist wraps.

Lo and behold, little Jacob got a hold of my wraps and LOVES them!  I think it's a sensory thing for him.  He'll put them on and take them off several times a day.  At first he needed my help, but now he can pretty much do it all by himself.  He wraps the elastic around his forearms as tight as he wants it, then runs around the house doing his thing until he decides he's done and takes them off.

I figured after a day or two he'd be tired of the novelty. But it's been nearly 6 months now, and he still pulls them out and wraps his arms.

I'm finding he also likes having the weight of my arm over him while he sleeps, and I've heard them talk about getting him a weighted lap blanked for school to see if that will help settle him down.

I guess the moral of this story is: As a parent of a special needs child, I must always think outside the box.  You never know what your child will find beneficial.

From Infant to Explorer

No news is good news.  I promise! :)

The last two months have been filled with crazy chaos, doctors, therapists, family, friends, and everything in between.

Our family and Jacob have finally begun to settle into our definition of normal - whatever that might be.

KC has begun light duty at work after breaking and dislocating his ankle and ripping all the tendons holding the two bones together.  It has been a long, hard and painful process which a an even longer road that he must continue to travel, but he's a fighter (and he's tired of being at home in the middle of the chaos!).  Now, after nearly 5 months, he is still only at about 60% usability of what he used to be.  He can only walk for a little while before he begins to experience significant pain, often walking with a cane, and by the end of the day, his ankle invariably ends up swelling to about twice its normal size.

Last month Nathan decided to join the ranks of the gimpy and had his foot worked on.  He's been growing so fast that his Achilles tendon could not grow fast enough to accommodate his growth. His feet had been collapsing in on themselves to accommodate the lack of movement.  So, they went in, lengthened the Achilles, broke his foot in two places and grafted bone in to help create a new, strong arch in his foot.  He's about 1 month in to his 4 month ordeal.  It pretty much ruined his summer, but on the upside it got him out of mowing the lawn, doing chores, and any hard labor.  So, he's decided it's a fair trade.

Elisha is neck deep in high-school teen-ager stuff. She's at the tail end of driver's ed, competing in the regionals of Junior Olympics for track, going to volleyball camp next week, and spending as much time as possible doing conditioning for varsity volleyball in the fall.  I look at her schedule and I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Courtney is still Courtney.  Funny, feisty and FAST.  With KC and Nathan down for the count, Elisha and I have found ourselves doing a lot of chasing after our ornery little toddler who does the exact opposite of what we ask her to do, running away giggling in the process.  I've already cursed her with children just like her when she grows up - twice!  Now I hope she ends up with twins! Bahahahahaha!!!

Jacob, although a tiny little tike, is no longer an infant.  It dawned on me only a couple days ago that he has come a long way from the sickly little heart baby in February.

Each and every day he progresses with leaps and bounds, much to the delight of this therapists. At 8 1/2 months he is rolling EVERYWHERE.  One minute he will be at our feet, we'll look away to talk to Courtney, look back and he will be across the room playing with a toy.  Elisha tried to put him down one day last week and rather than laying him down, she inadvertently put him on his feet.  He stood there by himself for 3 seconds!!  He's not quite sitting on his own, but each day he gets better and I figure he's only a couple weeks away from unassisted sitting.  He's been toying with crawling, but right now finds it easier to just use his legs to catapult himself in the direction he wants to go, much like a frog but not nearly as graceful.

Jake has also found his voice.  We've been working with him exhaustively to make noise - ANY noise.  Who knew that once I got a quiet child, I'd be freaked out that he was so quiet?!  So, we do lots of therapy with him, and he's finally beginning to pronounce his consonants - lots of da da's, ga ga's, ba ba's and such.  His speech is still significantly delayed, but we're finally getting something out of him, and I'm OK with that.

And, my favorite announcement of the month, he's FINALLY not sleeping in our bed any more!  Jacob is quite the cuddler - he likes to sleep with his face planted in a pillow, with a blanked over it, or in my case, firmly planted in the base of my back or in my rib cage.  I've spent month sleeping (if you call it that) stick straight for fear that I'd roll over him in my sleep.  He's finally in his own bed and I can sleep soundly!  Thank heaven for the little things.

Counting My Blessings - Jacob is not a trial

Quick Note: OK, I fell asleep last night with Jacob in my arms and didn't wake up again until 4 a.m.  Soooo even though the time stamp says it's Monday, just think in your mind that I'm typing like it's Sunday! ;)

Today was my turn to go to church with the kids.  K.C. got to stay home with Jacob and I got to be spiritually enriched this week.  I think of all the days so far, today was the day I needed it most.  I'm not sure why, but I'm sure that the fact that I haven't made it through an entire 3-hour session in nearly 4 or 5 months had a large part to do with it.  I used to think that sacrament was the only hour that truly mattered, and that the other two hours were basically 'fluff' for the adults but more geared towards giving the children and youth the time they needed to learn what they needed to grow to be spiritually strong adults.  But today, I felt like this time around I was recharging my batteries in each of the classes and came home ready to tackle the world.

Believe me, I needed that recharging.  We're in the late session now, which means that church starts at 1PM and we don't get home until 4:30 p.m.   So today I came racing home, made dinner, took Elisha to some Stake Youth Choir thingy at 5:30, came home and tried very hard not to scream at small children and husband
while I tried to eat my dinner, prepare FHE, get the house clean, and make sure Jacob got his meds before the Carpenter Family came over for  FHE at 7:00.  Luckily, wonders never cease and I even had 2 minutes to sit down for a second and breathe before the doorbell rang and our guests arrived.

All the time the Carpenters were here holding Jacob and spending our much-needed time together I kept looking over at Jacob and marveling at how much he has begun to grow.  He's no longer the itty bitty little baby (although he is still pretty small - still in his newborn clothes!) that used to scream FRAGILE every time you looked at him.  He's finally chunking up a little bit, and beginning to take on the look of  'baby'.  He doesn't look like he's going to break by merely looking at him any more.  And I have begun to think that maybe, just maybe, he will be strong enough for his surgery in just a few short weeks. 

The idea of having them open up his chest and work on his heart horrifies me.  I'm not quite sure  how I am going to react.  But at least I've had months to prepare myself emotionally for this event.  I'm not stupid enough to think I won't cry when I see  him.  What I'm shooting for is to just not absolutely freak out and go into uncontrolled sobbing.

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Today in Relief Society the lesson was on Enduring your trials and I felt like all eyes were on me (of COURSE I'd chosen to sit in the front row).  Weirdly enough, in spite of everything - all my rants of frustration. All of the tears and fears.  Today I didn't think of Jacob as a trial.  I look at that little boy and all I can think of is how lucky we are to have him!  How blessed we are to have this adorable little spirit in our home to remind us of the importance of patience, endurance, love unfeigned, innocence, and how screaming when life gets hard really doesn't do anyone any good.  Jacob has taught us how to have peace in the midst of a storm.  How to love someone with all your heart.  How to forgive when you've been hurt. How to optimistically hope for a happier day. And how even a simple smile can brighten anyone's day and lighten their load - even for just a moment.  Yes.  I do believe that Jacob has taught us so much.  He has never been a trial.  Only a blessing in our lives and in our home.  I would take 100 Jacobs in a heart beat if I could.  Each day with him teaches me to be a better person and to count my many blessings - count them 1 by 1.

Losing Pick Lines and Navigating the Mass of Doctors Working on Jacob

Its been a few days since I've taken the time to post anything new in the Allred Home.  This last week has been Thanksgiving week which means we've been blessed to be surrounded by our friends, family and loved ones all week long. We have been so incredibly blessed to be surrounded by so many loving and supportive people in the last several weeks.  So much so that our 'cups runneth over'.  My house is sparkling clean from top to bottom, I have had more sleep in the last week than I have had in the last 2, I haven't cooked a meal in weeks, and everywhere I turn, someone else has been showing acts of kindness and love to our family.  We have been truly blessed by all of our friends, family, and members of our church. All I can say is "wow" - and try REALLY HARD not to choke up with emotion and gratitude from the overwhelming sense of love we have felt from you all.  Thank you.

At times it can be difficult to spend so much time with Jacob at the hospital when all the rest of our family is here from out of town.  Luckily, everyone has been very understanding with the circumstances, and have even taken shifts with Jacob so that I can get more than my customary 3-4 hours of sleep per night and try to pretend to have a semblance of a life.  Courtney has begun to show the effects of me being gone so much, but the Aunties and the grandparents have stepped in and spoiled her rotten this week.  She has taken to the whole group and asks for them whenever we are not around. 

For the most part, little Jake has been an absolute trooper.  They finally got an internal jugular pick line into his little body at the beginning of the week, only to have it "fall out" when they changed the dressing 2 days later.  How something embedded into the body 6 inches via surgery by specialists just "falls out" on its own is beyond me, but I try to give them the benefit of the doubt.  To their credit, the nurses were able to get an IV into Jacob in less than a 1/2 hour (MUCH better considering the norm is about 1 1/2 hours of screaming on his part!) and were able to get a new IJ pick line in about 6 hours later after he'd waited the customary amount of time after his feeding to go under anesthesia. 

To his credit, the doctor came in and talked to KC and apologized profusely and promised that something like that would NOT happen again.

We thought all was taken care of and we were well on the road to recovery (they were talking 10 more days of antibiotics then home!) when we got a phone call this morning from Dr. Mueller again.  The nurses had been cleaning Jacob's pick line again because there was fluid build up and pulled it out again!!  Needless to say, I nearly came unglued.  No one has talked to me about it yet (they keep seeming to want to talk to KC - I think they're trying to avoid the emotionally crazed mom) but this is beginning to get ridiculous.  Whenever I DO get to talk to someone about Jacob, his infections, the estimated time he may or may not be in the hospital, etc.  I seem to get a different variation of the same story. 

There are so many people working on Jacob and everyone seems to have their own area of expertise.  So, there seems to be little communication among one another about what is going on, the official diagnosis, and how we are going to proceed.  For instance, Dr. Mueller told KC today that they will not be putting in another pick line into Jacob again for fear that it will just come out again.  They want to keep his existing IV in for as long as they possibly can (they're hoping for 4 or 5 days).  However, that still means another 4 or 5 days that he needs antibiotics, but will have no means of administration because all of his little veins are completely exhausted and unable to maintain an IV - this is pretty much the last IV they can put in him.  Soooo what do you do when your baby can't hold and IV, he can't hold a pick line, and he NEEDs to have his antibiotics in order to leave the hospital? Shots. lots and lots of them.  They'll give him shots right into his legs filled with the antibiotics several times a day.  Great.   HOWEVER, as we were leaving the hospital today, one of the nurses stopped KC and was talking to him about the pick line and seemed to indicate that she'd be talking to the doctor and see if there was another pick line alternative.  I heard mention of putting a line into his femoral artery??  Who knows.  We'll see what tomorrow's doctor says about it all.

It's kind of like the duration of our stay here at the hospital.  If you talk to one person, we'll be here for 4 weeks.  If you talk to another it is 3.  If you talk to another we have about 10 days, etc.  I think the duration of our stay will all depend on who is in charge on which day, and what kind of mood they are in at the time...lol. 

To say the least, I am mastering the art of patience and how to bite my tongue.  It does me no good if I start yelling at the nurses and become the 'mother from Hell', does it?  Although I must say, my patience is only going to last so long.  I only have a few drops of it left.

...This too shall pass.....like a kidney stone!