Update on Gryffin

[Guest guest]

Well, I've now been taking my son to see Dr. G for several months now

and I'm sure impressed with his progress. We do still have serious

immune issues and we end up in the office probably 2x a month on

average- once for the scheduled appointment and once because he's

sick with something. We were just in there on Tuesday (sick

appointment) and even Dr. G said he was very impressed with the

change in Gryffin. He's talking *so* much more and trying more every

day. Cognitively, he's just exploding. He learned how to play his

Vsmile about a week and a half ago and he's getting pretty good.

There are still parts he doesn't understand (especially listening to

the directions of the game) but he can maneuver through it pretty

well. One of his therapists commented that he does it better than

her NT daughter that's the same age. It was put away after we gave

it to him for Christmas because he just wasn't getting the concept of

him controlling what happens to the character on the screen with the

joystick. He asked me to pull it out and after just a few tries, he

got it. I, of course, was thoroughly excited! It was worth it just

for that moment! He's doing so well all around. Now if we could

just get him to stop getting every bug that comes within 50 feet of

him... We still haven't even been able to do an immune panel since

he's been sick constantly. He's now on his 3rd round of biaxin in

probably 3 months. I'm feeling pretty positive, though that we'll

get it under control.

He's progressing so much that I think he's ready to go to Fun For

Fours in his home school next year instead of staying in the SDC

class for another year. I was thinking of keeping him in the SDC

class but now, not so much. I really think he's at the point where

he needs typical peers that talk more than him to model speech for

him. His home school just started doing an inclusion FFF's program

and our SD has already said they could place him in it with an aide,

if needed. Somehow, I don't think he'll need an aide... But we

shall see. We start potty training on Monday and I'm excited to see

how that goes as he has all the concepts now. He understands what to

do and how to do it, he just doesn't understand that he can't always

be naked just so he can use the potty when he needs to. To him,

underwear are just broken diapers! He understands the concept of

diaper and pottying and being naked and using the potty but doesn't

seem to want to generalize it to having clothes on. It seems mostly

behavioral so we're going to give it a go over spring break and see

what happens. Wish us luck!

Overall, I just wanted to share how great he is doing. I'm excited

for what's to come. I'm starting iron in a few days, per Dr. G, and

after hearing what (I think it was) had to say about how much

it helped, I'm hoping for good results. He was finally starting to

eat new things right up until he got that stomach flu bug that was

going around and has gone back to eating his staples and just a few

days after getting over the flu he got bronchitis, yet again, so

eating has been rough lately. I'm hoping for a good change here and

maybe we can get back to discovering new foods!

Cheryl