The Health Report

The Cerebral Palsy Update
First I want to say thank you for your prayers! They are working. The therapist, Mo, saw improvement in Zoe's use of her left leg, even leading off with it when walking. I know that might seem minor, but this is a huge improvement from where Zoe was a few weeks ago.

Zoe is still struggling with not putting her left knee over her heel when getting up. This shows poor muscle tone in her left leg. Mo isn't sure if this indicates solely her heel chord being tight or if her left glute is also weak.

The plan is to postpone an "official" diagnosis of cerebral palsy at this point because Zoe is showing signs of improvement. Which wouldn't necessarily be the case if she had cerebral palsy. If we had her diagnosed now, that diagnosis would follow her the rest of her life as CP is not correctable. This issue that she's having could be some muscle development issues (they had some fancy medical term that I don't remember), which is correctable, rather than CP.

However, some of the basic concerns are still evident. The plan now is to increase her therapy times to twice a week. Mo is going to work with Zoe intensely during their sessions to help loosen and strengthen her little muscles. The good news is these exercises are really play time for Zoe. We play peek-a-boo through her legs, have her reach for things while sitting on our laps, and was have a dance-like maneuver for helping her learn to go from sitting to getting on her knees. She loves it!

Some of these things are obviously working because after her nap time on Tuesday, my mom found her standing in her crib. Normally Zoe doesn't go from laying down to sitting to standing. She is now!

While we're not out of the cerebral palsy woods, we're definitely seeing some light through the branches.