Hmmm...looks like surgery stands at May 27 or will it?

Our visit with Dr. Moffatt at Family and Child Eye center went well...we think. The good news is that Andrew has definitely improved since his last visit with Dr. Mazow. On his vision test he was a strong 20/50 in his left eye the best he has done since he has been with us. Dr. Moffatt concurred that surgery was imminent and that we should proceed with surgery as scheduled. He did not even suggest any vision therapy until after surgery. We were however disappointed that he felt Andrew would need much longer therapy than the first optometrist had suggested. Dr. Moffatt felt he would need 2yrs post surgery where previously we were told 9 months. We left still very skeptical and unsure since we are being told that while we will be given things to do at home we have been strongly cautioned that it needs to be done under the careful instruction of vision therapists not attempted on our own. This line of thinking I am familiar with. It is what many told me about home schooling--leave this to professionals. So, if we do vision therapy you can be sure that I will be taking careful notes and perhaps looking for a vision therapy textbook. Much for us to consider and pray about. Unfortunately, none of the vision therapy is covered by insurance and it is very pricey. I am not sure how we could afford it even if we wanted to do it--trusting the Lord for His provision should He lead us to do this. On a more positive note though I noticed how automatic Andrew's recognition of his letters has become. I am still convinced that Andrew has needed more time for his language to catch up before we could really get a good idea of where his vision is lacking and where he is developmentally.

This of course is the great challenge when adopting internationally because you know that there are delays (many that can be overcome in the natural course of life), but always the possibility that additional help may be needed in areas that have gone untreated for longer periods of time or where real damage has been done. For Andrew we have felt all along and continue to feel that most of his developmental issues are/were institutional effects--like the lack of opportunity to learn some basic skills when he was younger.

We talked to Dr. Ky about our visit with Dr. Moffatt, and Dr. Ky was not ready to concede just yet to surgery so he made another call to a Neurological Chiropractor who mentored him and asked for some advice. We continue to be amazed and thankful to the Lord for sending us Dr. Ky to advocate for Andrew and encourage us.

Interestingly, Dr. Ky's mentor had some activities for us to try with Andrew at home (finally, this is what we have been asking for since we first set foot in a Dr.'s office 10 months ago!!). He suggested 15mins a day of each of these activities: crawling, marching, and using an upper body ergometer (device you can use to pedal like a bike with your arms). Andrew could crawl just fine, but when we tried the marching he was all over the place and not able to control his arms at first. We worked with him to show him how to get control and his timing down and in no time he was really making some progress. He definitely did not learn this activity and apparently it is useful in developing a certain part of the cortex in the brain related to visual development. Now, we couldn't say for certain that--again because of lack of opportunity--he hadn't learned this or is there some damage to this area that is causing him to have difficulty with this activity. We think the former, but from a neurological chiropractor's stand point, whether there was damage or lack of opportunity working this "like a muscle" and strengthening it along with Andrew's chiropractic adjustments we could see an improvement in his vision, even the possibility of his eye straightening. We continue to hold out hope, but have a peace that if surgery is still needed we will do what is needed.

What the neurological chiropractor is telling us makes sense as we took the same approach in teaching Andrew English "lets start at the beginning" then move forward. So, we did many activities that you would do with an infant, and he of course progressed quickly through these simple skills, but I have to wonder would we have hit a wall by now linguistically had we not taken that approach. Had we skipped what seemed too simple because of an artificial need to have him "at level". Hard to know. We have felt all along less is more which is why we have been reluctant to pummel him with specialists who hear his background and immediately jump to the worst conclusion and want to subject us and Andrew to every kind of therapy and test. Simply time and the ability to work with him at home with the freedom of homeschooling to tailor his time and learning to what he needs most we believe has given him a more stable environment to bloom in. This is not to say that we would not seek additional help, but that we are not running to dozens of specialists first in that critical first year.

For our family what was most important was for us to get to know Andrew, and for him to trust us, and for us to trust the accuracy of any analysis of him. When evaluating what doctors tell you it is critical that as a parent you know your child well enough to know if this is too much right now or a waste of time. The phrase we hear most often is "the younger the better" and while this is true it is unreasonable to think that we could undo 5+ yrs in less than a year--no more than I could set out to be an astronaut in 10 months :).

We could not be more proud of Andrew and all that he has accomplished in almost a year. He remains an extremely bright, sweet, strong, brave and loving child. By God's grace he is growing by leaps and bounds still. As his parents, by God's grace we continue to prayerfully consider what is best for Andrew as a whole person. It is one of the greatest challenges as a parent, but we know that the Lord is faithful to give us wisdom when we seek Him.

Twists and Turns

All I can say is that we are seeking wisdom from the Lord with all of our hearts. Our visits with the Chiropractor are going well and Andrew seems to be showing some signs of improvement. Not specifically an improvement of visual acuity which is what the ophthalmologist is looking for, but some improvements in other areas.
We were talking to our Chiropractor about where we were at with Andrew's vision and Andrew's patching regiment. Dr. Ky again suggested that we consider vision therapy. We talked more in depth about our experience with the optometrist and vision therapy. We thought, well that was that, and didn't think too much about it. But at our next visit Dr. Ky told us that he had talked to his brother in law who is one of the partners at the Child and Family eye clinic that we had taken Andrew to for an evaluation. We were shocked to find out that he had a brother in law there that was one of the partners. We were even more surprised that Dr. Ky of his own initiative spoke to Dr. Moffatt (the brother in law) on our behalf. Dr. Moffatt was interested and told Dr. Ky that he would personally look into Andrew's case. When Dr. Ky told us about this we were so blessed by his actions and believed that the Lord may be re-opening this door of vision therapy. Even more strange is that we later found out that Dr. McMain's whom we previously saw was no longer with the practice and that her emphasis was on the learning therapy...which was what turned us off as we were looking for vision help--not play therapy, because we wanted to do that at home!

So, we decided to schedule an appointment with Dr. Moffatt specifically and will be seeing him tomorrow to re-evaluate Andrew. From Andrew's file he said that he would never have recommended that we stop patching unless we were doing vision therapy and that he felt he would likely still need surgery. He was also puzzled as to why it took us 2 months to complete the evaluation. So, now we are cautiously, prayerfully reconsidering the possibility of vision therapy. Please join us in prayer as we seek the Lord's wisdom . In the end it is His will that we want to be done. I can't help but think about so many providential events and people that the Lord has placed in our life over the past few months, when it seemed all hope was gone and that we were to just accept that we had accomplished the best for Andrew's vision. Seemingly, out of no where, a door has opened that the Lord may use to accomplish healing in Andrew's life to "restore to you the years the locusts have eaten" -Joel 2:25

A window into the womb

Today we were so very excited to hear Baby Shiflet's heartbeat for the very first time. He/she is now 12 weeks along...almost the size of an orange now. All six of us were present and it was so fun to see the faces of all of our children when that sweet sound resonated across the Doppler. For Daddy and Mommy it is much encouragement that things are progressing normally and gives us our first sounds of life to cherish. We are all becoming very excited and anxious to meet this little gift.
Andrew asks me almost everyday if the baby is big enough for him to feel it kick yet. He cannot wait for this to happen and I too am excited with him. I asked him if the baby was a boy what name he would give the baby...without hesitation "Larry". After Larry the cucumber from Veggie Tales of course. I then asked him what name he would give the baby if it were a girl...he thought for a moment then replied with a shrug "That would be Kathlena's business" Such a thoughtful boy and clever too! Well, thankfully all can rest assured that Daddy and Mommy will have the final say on names and I am thinking that Larry probably isn't going to make the cut, but we appreciate Andrew's thoughts.

Below is a recording Emily made of Baby Shiflet's very strong heartbeat. Coming in at 160-170 beats/min. Kathlena was quite fascinated with the Doppler machine and once that heartbeat came across the speaker she jumped up and went straight for the speaker to get a closer listen followed by all her other siblings. We were all smiles. Thank you my sweet Emily for recording this precious moment in Shiflet history for us to cherish.

You can turn the music off in the sidebar so you can hear the audio. It is a short clip, but such a sweet sound.