Monday, March 3, 2008

The OT

Holland has a standing appointment with an Occupational Therapist every Monday. She's working with him to improve his upper body strength. It's his favorite doctor so far because he gets to play. There are heavy ropes hanging from the ceiling and all kinds of things to hang and swing on. Tonight he had to lay on his tummy and grab kushi balls that the therapist would drop in front of him and then toss into a basketball hoop. His mind is on everything but the task. He lobbed a few into the hoop and then decided it would be much more fun to hurl it like a major league pitcher. It smacked into the metal blinds on the window behind the hoop. He starts laughing his head off. The OT just looks at him and asks him what's so funny. (She's so brilliant with him. I wish she could come live here for awhile!) He has so much trouble following directions: his mind is elsewhere, inventing things and planning strategies. She was very patient and would just wait for him to come back to the task. He still had to do everything, but wasted a lot of time.

Because it took him so long to get through all the exercises, he had no time to use the equipment of his choosing. He was disappointed, but actually took it better than I thought. Every time she asked him to do something, he was off in another part of the room trying to figure out how he could hook up something to catapult it somewhere else.

This week we have exercises to help strengthen his back and also help with coordination. One more thing to squeeze into a day that already needs about 28 hours.

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