Mild Cold

Hello! Hello! Hello! It’s been many weeks since my last posting as I’ve not had the time. It’s been busy, stressful and eventful. I’ll try to write several postings on key events that happened as I don’t think it’s possible to summarise it all into just one post.

In this post though, I will write about his mild cold that he currently has and then in my next posts, back track in time to some past events.

He started his mild cold on 18 Nov and he’s still not fully recovered from it yet. He was getting better after a week or so, then got worse, and repeated that better-worse cycle two more times over a 3 week span.

He is on the recovery stage as I write this post and hopefully he’ll recover completely this time so that both he and I can at last have proper sleep.

Although 3 weeks is a long time, I am thankful his cold has been mild and mostly managed with runny nose medicine. He only needed a few days of hospital runs for the nebuliser, and even then it was only using Duovent. In the past, the months of Nov & Dec typically see him falling ill with a bad cold leading onto bronchitis or bronchiolitis, so I hope this means that his immune system is getting stronger as he grows up.

3 weeks of putting plans on hold because of the cold is a long time for me. It’s 3 weeks of the year end school holidays lost.

I had planned for him to complete the 40 sessions of HBOT on 1 Dec. We’ve only done 18 sessions so far. Even though his cold is mild, it has made it difficult for him to equalise as we dive. Perhaps because he’s still small, the sinus and Eustachian tubes are also tiny, and thus either slightly inflamed or congested with a bit of mucus.

I really do want to complete the remaining sessions asap as I’ve seen good benefits from it. His spasticity is reduced which enables him to do more fine motor work. Oral motor has also seen some improvement where he can now purse his lips and chew chunkier spoonfuls of meat. He seems to think a bit faster and speaks his mind more frequently.

I had also planned other activities for him this school holidays, apart from HBOT. I wanted to do Neurosuit therapy to maintain/improve his stamina, and increase his muscle strength. I wanted to have many play dates with some of his classmates, at home and outdoors (at the park, science centre, PetroSains, cinema) to improve his social skills and confidence. I wanted to resume his music class so that the gap between the kids doesn’t grow even wider. We wanted to celebrate his birthday with an outing to the KL International Motor Show, as he’s crazy about cars. I wanted to bring him to see the beautiful Christmas decorations in the many shopping malls. I wanted to start him on swimming lessons in order to be water safe before he starts primary school (one lesson period a week is allocated to swimming).

Well, those were the things I planned for him. Then there were the errands which I planned but got shoved aside...reorganising his room, the kitchen cupboards, my cupboard, the store room...renovation to hack off and replace several cracked floor tiles, chopping down the durian tree, reupholstering the dining chairs (they are peeling so badly that they look like the flaking skin of a sunburnt swimmer)...planning how to help him progress in his maths and phonics...and more...

As you can see, I’m not one to waste time. So instead of carrying out my original plans, we did other home based activities. But I kept them light and easy, and limited the number of activities as he was sick. There were lots of art and craft activities, other fine motor activities, a few pages of simple worksheets a day and reading daily. I had more time (and patience) for him to practice self care skills (self feeding, wiping his backside after poo poo etc). He had a lot of time to play with his vehicles - that’s a special treat I allow as it is the school holidays, and he is sick (and cranky!). For the first few weeks, he literally had a vehicle in his hand the moment he woke, and was the last thing in his hand when the lights were switched off. That’s just how crazy he is about vehicles. : )

Tomorrow, he starts his intensive Neurosuit therapy for 5 consecutive days. It should be ok for the first few days but I’m not sure if he can last 2 hours a day for 5 days! But I’m sure the therapist will adjust accordingly.