10
May
2011
Dorrie got her teeth right on schedule and in the correct order. She’s also never really eaten much of anything by mouth, though to our dismay she continues to occasionally return her food to us by mouth.
Because of her poor swallowing ability, and her inability to understand not to try and swallow something, we’ve never felt comfortable using any sort of toothpaste with her and have relied on dry brushing to keep her teeth clean. But beyond that I’m ashamed to admit we’ve done almost nothing at all. The summer she turned two we discussed going to the dentist, but she was still on the vent full time at that point, and we never got further than discussion and asking a few people for recommendations about a dentist to try. (We got conflicting recommendations, which didn’t make us any more eager to pursue the matter.)
Last summer she turned three and was off the vent during the day, but we still didn’t have a better idea of where to go, so in the end a visit remained in the realm of discussion — though with additional guilt and concern that we really needed to get this done. So finally this winter we polled her teachers for recommendations and got a very enthusiastic one from her vision teacher. After some hemming and hawing, we made an appointment. When I would brush her teeth I could see some gunk on there that the brush just wasn’t getting off, so it was clear she needed a dental cleaning.
The visit went extremely smoothly all things considered. Dorrie is a biter, and she will try to chew anything that goes into her mouth. I was very afraid she would try to bite the scrapey thing the dentist uses and injure herself, or turn her head suddenly while he was working and again, injure herself. I had horrible visions of Dorrie with bloody holes in her mouth, so I was pretty on edge when the cleaning started. But as noted, it went very smoothly. The mirror the dentist used for some reason made Dorrie keep her mouth open rather than chomp down on it, and she didn’t try to bite the scraper at all. She was also very calm about the whole thing and didn’t freak out. We were very pleased to hear that in spite of her incessant vomiting, her teeth are actually in very good shape – no pitting or other obvious signs of deterioration. So yay. Hopefully they’ll continue to be in good shape for our next visit.
Posted: moving forward... or not, our little witch, trying to stay healthy
10
May
2011
Our plan for Mother’s Day was ambitious: we took Dorrie over to the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire and then out to eat.
The Children’s Museum opened a new location a couple of years ago, and I had never been — in fact, I hadn’t been there since I was a child myself, and I remembered being impressed by this giant ship they had inside which you could climb upon.
There isn’t any climbing ship at the new location (and Dorrie couldn’t use it if there was), but I hoped there would be enough stuff that Dorrie would find it interesting. And maybe be able to somewhat participate with some of the exhibits (I had visions of bubble and sand and water tables, which would seem to be a standard exhibit at a children’s museum…)
I have to confess, I was actually really disappointed by the museum. It was accessible in only the loosest sense of the word: the wheelchair-stroller fit pretty well through all the exhibits. But not a single exhibit was set up so that someone actually sitting in a wheelchair could easily take part. Things were placed in the center of very low tables with no portion raised high enough for a wheelchair to get underneath, or in smaller areas where the chair couldn’t fit at all. Now, Dorrie doesn’t have the motor control to be able to play with a lot of small toys on a table, but quite a lot of chair-bound kids do, and as far as I could see there was zero thought devoted to them. In an older facility I can give it a grudging pass, but this was built only a couple of years ago! Definite failure. (Oh, and there were no bubbles or sand or water tables at all. The exhibits were not really very exciting.)
Dorrie wasn’t quite sure what to make of the place. She doesn’t look down very well, so most of it wasn’t really in her line of vision. She seemed somewhat interested in the bits of it that she could see easily. But she was far more intrigued by the ceiling fan at the restaurant we ventured to afterward.
Posted: moving forward... or not, our little witch, tales of interest
5
May
2011
Dorrie has been receiving homebound services from the school all year, and she’s handled having the teachers coming in very well – medically and otherwise.
So we’ve been discussing the possibility of having her attend the special needs preschool next year instead of having home services.
We decided to do an experiment and bring her to the school for OT. To see how she reacted to the location, and how she handled being exposed to the school equipment. (Though not the children, exactly, since OT is at lunchtime and in between the morning and afternoon preschools.)
She had a very nice time. We’ll be repeating the experience a couple more times to see how it goes, but there’s not really any good intermediate step between in-home and in-school services, so I think we’re going to just have to try it next year. If she gets sick a lot we’ll have to revisit, but we’re all hoping she’s big enough and strong enough to handle it.
Posted: moving forward... or not, our little witch, schoolhouse rock
