Life with a Cerebral Palsy Teenager take 2

Well, this will be my last entry in my blog. I hope that my life experience with dealing with Lupus when pregnant to Life with a Cerebral Palsy child has answer some of your questions. If not I hope that this has been interesting information. I hope that you will not have to experience any of these situations, but if you do I hope you will remember some tof the things I talked about. This is a current picture of my son, Cameron.

Life with a Cerebral Palsy Teenager

I am not an expert in this part of Cerebral Palsy teenager, mine is 16 and things are changing for him about as fast as I can type...maybe faster. As a tween he became more aware of his deficiencies so as a teenager trying to fit in is even harder. He doesn't want to be considered a kid with a handicap, but he doesn't feel like he can fit in. Encouraging you child to be part of High School activities is extremely hard, they don't want to let down their teammates but it's important for them to be involved in something. With this in mind we encouraged our son to attend all of the High School football games. We thought it would be best for his self-esteem to attend these games without us. The one time that we did attend he knew so many kids I was shocked. I know that in his own way will make his mark in high school, he won't be the best athlete, a drama geek or a math genius, he will be the kid that everyone will remember trying his hardest and never let his disability bring him down.

Life with a Cerebral Palsy Tween

Toddler years was hard!! Tweens is harder! This is the time of every kids life when they realize that they are not like their parents and want more independence. The problem with kids with CP is that they still need to have their parents help them out. As a parent you want to teach them to be independent, but you know that they can not fully understand what it means to be responsible for their own actions. Now, I know Tweens with no challenges have these issues with their parent, the difference with mild CP kids is that it's more noticeable by their peers and they can easily be minuplated. Always keep in mind that CP kids do understand it just takes them longer.

Life with a Cerebral Palsy Toddler

Toddler life for a preemie is not that much different that your average toddler, they are just smaller. Preemie's are slower than the average toddler, I was told by the doctors that for every month early a child is born they are about a year behind. For us, that meant that Cameron could be 2 years behind in his learning. In some area of learning this is true, in others, he is at the same level as his peers. I would suggest that when it's time for your preemie to start school, don't always listen to the teachers. Even though they are saying it's the best for your child and it your heart you know it's not, FIGHT the system. The biggest mistake I did was to put my trust into the system and allowed my son to become "pigeon hold" in his learning. Parents have rights to fight the school system, no matter what their learing skills are!! The following link is an article two law students from Duke Univeristy, they go over the rights parent have when they have a child with a learning disability. http://www.law.duke.edu/childedlaw/childrenwithdisabilities.html

Life with a Preemie

As Cameron got older we found that it took him longer to learn how to crawl, but once he did learn there was no stopping him. He was just like any other child that figured he could move when he wanted to and not when his parents moved him. He learned to walk on his own when he was 2. He was slow and unsteady but he was able to do it, the therapist were amazed. He was even riding a bike by the age of 4. Riding a bike is one of the best ways to stretch your leg muscles, which is very important for kids with CP. Though the therapist were very helpful, they generalized the CP condition; therefore, were not always correct in their predictions for Cameron's future.

Preemie Baby & Cerberal Palsy

Three months after Cameron came home he was diagnosed with Cerberal Palsy (CP). This disorder affects the brain that effects one's motor skills. Preemies are at high risk to have this disorder because they are born early, some of their organs will not fully develop. For Cameron it was his right side of his brain which effect his left side of his body. For mor information about how this disorder detected, please see http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/cerebralpalsy.html website. We were fortunate that Cameron was diagnosed at an early age. We were able to have him start physical therapy early in his life. Before he started to walk we were told that he should have a orthopedic brace made for his left leg. This brace helps his leg muscules for stiffening, which is one of the side effects of CP.

Preemie baby - More days in hospital

As you can see from the pictures, preemies have a rough start in life! As the days go on and you feel like you will never get to have your baby at home...the day finally comes. 96 days later for us, and 4.5 pounds later I was bringing home Cameron. We had gone through so much in those 96 days, but not has much as others. Cameron did end up on a ventilator for breathing about a month-n-half into his stay for about 3 days. Most preemies are on a ventilator the whole time they are in the hosptial. Oxygen is always flowing in the incubator so that they don't have to exert so much energy. In this picture you see my hands with a bottle which really looks like a vial, attached to a long tiny tube, this was Cameron's feeding tube that was inserted down his throat so again he would not exert to much energy. He had this for 2 months. By the time he came home he was drinking 1-2 of these bottle every 3 hours. He was health when he came home, but there were long term effects that we were unaware of until he was six months old......