Today Noah started off his day with OT. I had written at the beginning of the month that we had an appointment with one of the therapists at Children's on May 2nd. This appointment went well and we decided we were going to try electrical stimulation on Noah's right arm. When I met with the therapist I told her I was unsure if we could do this at our local center, and we made plans to set up an appointment with a different therapist at Children's. I was assured that I would hear from her to set up the appointment by Tuesday (last Tuesday that is), and of course haven't heard a thing. This has been one of my main concerns with continuing therapy at Children's and I have to say I am a little annoyed. Anyway after that Friday appointment, Noah was seen at his local place as usual for PT on Monday. I was able to talk with his OT during this appointment and she said that she did not have experience with e-stim, but they could do it there and there were several other therapists that could help with it. Since I knew it was going to be difficult to get anything set up at Children's, and I was concerned about insurance coverage (we already got some letter saying how they wouldn't cover an appointment at Children's for e-stim) I decided we should try it at our local center.
So last Wednesday we showed up for Noah's OT appointment and they were all ready to show us the machine and start with introducing it to Noah. I was very impressed with how they handled it and had thought about a plan to start the therapy. Our OT actually had the owner of the center come in for the beginning of the session and this made me feel much more comfortable about everything. I have to say that even though this OT may not have as much experience as the one at Children's she is so easy to talk to, always gets back to me when I have a question or need to get in touch with her, is willing to learn about different therapies, and is great about communicating with Noah's OT at school. Not to mention Noah absolutely loves her! Every day he knows he is going to see her he tells me "how much he loves her." Anyway we showed up on Wednesday and they thought it would be a good idea to try out the machine on me to show Noah what it was all about. I totally wasn't expecting this but went along with it and think that it may have helped. It definitely felt weird and I'm curious to know how it will feel for Noah. As we have mentioned in the past we're not sure how much sensation he has in that arm/hand. It was also surprising to me how much it made the muscles in my hand contract. I guess this is the purpose and what we will be looking for to have Noah perform certain activities with his hand. They didn't try it on Noah that day (he didn't want to), and we made a plan to make weekly morning appointments to see if he would tolerate it better.
Well the only morning appointment available was at 8AM on Monday. Noah has PT on Mondays as well so I decided we would give it a try. We somehow made it on time this morning and everything actually went really well. She was able to put the "magic pads" on Noah's arm and he tolerated it fine. She said that she turned it on and asked him when he felt the "magic" but she said that he could not feel it today. This is totally fine as I think it is best to start off with things very slow. They did this at the beginning of his session and he was very cooperative. I'm glad that we made the decision to try this there, especially with someone that Noah is so comfortable with. I also found out that when we plan to start doing this at home we can rent a machine there for $100 a month and they see if we can get a machine covered by our insurance. I still have to do some research on the whole e-stim therapy and will reach out to the OT at Children's to let her know our plan and also to get some sort of "protocol" that they use with children with hemiplegia. Feel good that at least we know somewhat what we are doing! Otherwise had a great day and it was so nice to enjoy the warm weather.
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