We have a New Physical Therapist

I called bright and early to our Case Worker, L. She wasn't in the office yet, so I left a voicemail and asked her to call back. She called back right before 12p and so I told her everything that happened. (see post below if you want to read the story) She was appalled that this women shook and yelled at K like she did. I also highlighted some of the other problems we have had with her. She asked me to write a formal complaint, which I am working on. Our Case Worker, L just called back around 3pm and said she found us a new Physical Therapist and after signing a few forms, we should start back up in about 2 weeks with sessions. She also said that when she went to call the Physical Therapist and told her she would no longer be working with K, that she was just shocked and per her words "but those people need me to help them, they need me to save them". Hmmm, Guess the Physical Therapist couldn't hide her craziness to the Case Worker either. I'm just so relieved to have this stress off my shoulders, I can't tell you how good this feels. I don't know why I didn't speak up sooner with my dissatisfaction and it took my daughter being in danger to do anything about it. But I'm just relieved that this chapter is behind us.

It was 71 Today!!

It was so nice to have warm weather today. After the morning from hell, which I'll write about a little later in this post, I took K to the park. We had never been to this park before and it really wasn't all that great. It had 3 different playgrounds, the biggest one was packed with big kids, so we headed off to the one that had no children playing on it. We ate lunch and then went to play. There were 3 other little kids playing there, so no worries about K getting knocked down or anything like that because they were all under the age of 2 1/2. K spent so much time going up and down the slide. And after watching another little girl swing, K decided to give it a try. Now up until now K would scream and just freak out if she was put in a swing or even taken near a swing, so I was really surprised when she wanted to give it a try. Of course K had to do it on her terms, which meant Mommy couldn't push her but K got the hang of it and actually started pumping her legs on her own so she could swing back and forth. I could of just cried right then and there watching her swing with a great big smile on her face. Read below the pictures about my morning from hell.

So otherwise K had a rough night last night, so when I got a phone call at 730am saying it was the Sears Home Repair guy here to fix the Washer, needless to say he woke me up. So I threw on some clothes and he was waiting at the front door. My wash machine has been broken since 2 days after Christmas, I have a Home Repair Warranty on it but it has taken me this long talking to the stupid 1-800 number and finally a manager to get someone out here. So he walks in, I tell him the problem, he goes will that means you need a new Main Control Panel (yep wash machine's computer is fried). So he looks to see if he has one in stock...of course he doesn't and he has to order the freakin' part. I am beyond livid at this point, it has taken me over 3 months to get you out here and you don't have the stupid part and it's not like I didn't tell the 1-800 number what the problem was, so it wasn't like you were coming out here without knowing what was wrong, so you would think you would come prepared! So now I have to wait another week for the part to come in and for him to come back out and install it. So hopefully next Wednesday I'll be posting about my wash machine being fixed and not about how I'll have to keep washing clothes in the sink because I'm still without one. But No that isn't the worse part of my day and even now I'm still LIVID!!! K had PT today, so as I've said I have had issues with the Physical Therapist and as the weeks and months have gone by I decided to just tolerate her because I thought she was retiring in May, well she changed her mind and will be around until K graduates out of the program, which is May2009. K and her has had there battle of wills in the last 3 months or so but it never amounted to anything because I would always intervene and get K to finish whatever activity it was. Today the Physical Therapist decides to have K walk over a 2x4 piece of wood. Well this isn't a new activity but instead of walking and stepping on it, she wanted K to totally step over the board without stepping on it. Well since this was a different activity then before K kept stepping on the board, the Physical Therapist showed her once what she wanted to do and K tried doing it but went back to just stepping on the board to cross it. Well I can see it in the Physical Therapist face that she is becoming annoyed because K isn't doing what she asked. So they Physical Therapist places her hands on K's upper arms, starts shaking her and yells at her, I was watching my daughter's shocked face that I can't even remember what she said but K was on the verge of tears and looking at me like what did I do wrong Mommy. The physical therapist takes her hands off K and I with great restraint because all I really wanted to do was hit this women, told her "I think it's time for you to leave". She took her things out to the car and wrote the session report and brought me my copy back to the door. I was going to call our Case Worker right away but I was so livid that if I did, well I'm not sure what I would have said and I really needed to calm down so I didn't sound like some crazy over-reacting mother but a very articulate person so this matter is handled properly. But you can betcha that bright and early tomorrow that our Case Worker will be receiving a call from me and we will be getting a new Physical Therapist!! So I'll let you all know how the phone call goes. Oh yeah, you know this great weather we had today by tomorrow it's suppose to be in the 30's for the rest of the week with freezing rain.

EDITED to ADD: Oh yeah one more thing about the Physical Therapist, as you know she's been trying to self diagnose K. Like she thought K was having seizures and well the list goes on. Well today's thing is that she asked me if K liked to swing and I told her no (it was before we went to the playground) she hates it, she screams and cries anytime we go near one and she goes well I think she has a Sensory Disorder. So of course I ask what kind of Sensory Disorder she thought it was and she asked if K liked going down a slide by herself and I go she'll go down but she's spooked herself a few times by almost falling off that she sometimes wants us to hold her hand so that way she slows down and so this is when she goes Oh then she must have Gravitational Insecurity Sensory Disorder. I have to say I'm really sick of this women trying to self-diagnose my child when there isn't a problem!

Babysitting

Today my friend's J&J were in a bind, so I watched their daughter, S. She is 9 months younger than K and also adopted from Vietnam. The girls played, ate lunch and then both went down for a nap, after they got up they ate, played, went outside for a little while but then it got a little nippy so we came back in and played until J got here. I was so happy that S did so well and it was actually pretty funny because by the afternoon she became very possessive of me, I wasn't allowed to hold K. If K was in my arms, S would come over and try and removing my hands from around K.As soon as I would put K down, S would go back playing like nothing happened. And anytime my Mom would come close to me, S would come over and keep a hand on me until my Mom left. I had never seen her do this before and I have to say we got a little chuckle out of it. I just hope that S's jealous reaction isn't something that J&J have to look forward too since they just started the paperchase for #2. So far K has never had that reaction to me holding another child but since it looks like she will be almost 3 1/2 or 4 when her sister comes home from China, it maybe a whole different story then. In the pictures K is in the jeans and S is in the pink pants.

Monday

You know today wasn't all that bad. Played with K, cleaned up the potty chair (it's been stored outside) so we can begin potty training and put it in the bathroom, applied for some jobs and worked on some items to sell on Ebay. The day was going pretty well and even got better when my Mom came home and they gave out Hershey Almond Gold Bars at work and by luck a few people didn't want theirs so she was able to bring me home one. Mmmmm, just looking at it all wrapped up in it's gold foil makes me hungry. See these Almond Gold Bars cost $3.00 a piece and are smaller than a regular Hershey chocolate bar, these are consider "premium chocolate". I haven't ate mine yet, waiting for that special occasion, like when I get a new job maybe or maybe when I'm really craving chocolate. I'm just so excited to have one, it's like Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket, heck even the packaging reminds you of one. Then this evening before K got into her pj's, I put K on the potty and she went as soon as I took her diaper off and she sat down. I was so excited, maybe this potty training thing won't be so hard after all.

What a Week

Well this week started off ok but it did take a downhill turn really fast. First off, Thank you to all that commented and emailed, it really meant alot to me that the post about K's condition really made an impact. A few people asked if they could link my blog or even repost my post on there blog, my answer is yes, because information is power. Just leave a comment or email me.

Our week went like this, Uncle N's girlfriend's Grandma had passed away so we had planned on attending her visitation/funeral that was on Wed. Well I forgot that K had a appointment at Shriner's that day. Well most of the time I attend these appointments alone just because I can't ask my Mom or my Brother to take off work to go with me. These appointments are exhausting, not only for K but also for me. Have you ever tired to wrangle a hysterical 2 year old, who is screaming so loud you think your ear drums are doing to burst, who is also ripping your clothes off because she is trying to crawl over you and away from them and in doing so is leaving claw marks (by the way I trim her nails as short as we can before we go because I can guarantee this will happen), all the while trying to have an intelligent conversation with the Doctor who is standing over 10 feet away from you at the door because they know they can't go anywhere near you daughter with out causing her to freak out more than she already is? That was our Wed appointment. K's fear of doctors has just gotten worse, it was horrible before but it's 200% worse now. And it's been since the Nerve Conduction Study, I blame it on the fact that she had to be awake for almost the whole test and trust me, I had the test done for carpal tunnel and it's the worst feeling you can every have. Imagine forgetting to turn off the light when you are changing the burned-out light bulb and you touch the socket and you get that shock of electricity going through you body, well magnify that by 1000% and that's what the Nerve Conduction feels like. Heck, I'm a very strong person, who tolerates severe pain and this test almost brought me to tears, so I totally understand why K thinks they are going to hurt her again. So after having the intelligent conversation that basically ended with us both agreeing we need to talk to the Neurologist before anything really can be solved, other than they ordered a new brace for K. So we headed over to the Shop, where they had to make a casting of K's leg. Well the Nurse who did the casting wouldn't hold K's leg totally straight, so I have a fear that they are going to have it all jacked-up like her last one and have her leg go at this weird funky curve. But I even pointed that out to the Nurse and she said they would fix the curve, I hope they will because I won't accept it this time because all it did previously is make K's leg hurt more because it wasn't been kept in the correct position.

Well then we got home that afternoon and my Father had left a message on my machine that when like this, "Your Aunt Gladys ******** passed away and I think the services is Wednesday or Thursday somewhere in SL." So I run upstairs and pull up the local SL paper and her visitation is Wednesday with Service on Thursday. Crap, Today is Wednesday!! So here it is 230pm and I'm trying to get ahold of my Mom at work and my Brother who is already at another funeral. So by 330pm, I get ahold of them all and so then K and I rush around trying to get cleaned up, everyone's clothes laid out and make sure to pack a bag of stuff for K. Amazingly, we were all clean, dressed and out the door by 410pm. Once we arrived there, we were greeted by our Cousins (my Aunt's daughters). They were so thankful we could make it, they said we were some of the first people they thought about after she had passed and they had thought we had been called by one of their husbands, instead I guess the husband left it up to my Father to call me, which I'm really surprised that he did since he still hasn't meet his only Granddaughter and refuses to speak with me when I have tried to make contact, but I also know that if he hadn't and we had missed this, well his a$$ would have been grass. Now there's alot of back history with my Father's family that well it's just too complicated to explain but my Father has a Sister. We were on good terms until September of this year but then she just sort of flipped out even more and was convinced that we were spying on her for my Grandma and her Goons. Well she came with my Great-Aunt (the last living from that generation) and she acted totally weird with me but actually had a really nice long conversation with my brother and actually talked with K. We kept our distance from each other but I didn't want to invade her space. Otherwise I spent a really long time with my Great-Aunt and it was really nice, but it also made me miss my Grandpa because our conversation and what we talked about was so similar, I guess Sisters and Brothers think alike.

Then on Thursday and Friday, K spent her days and nights in pain. She really didn't even want to play, just wanted to cuddle kitty. Even the baby Tylenol didn't even help a little bit. So we were just wore out. We spent today running errands, we ran into Hobby Lobby today and ran into a former Co-Worker, who was instrumental in me getting laid-off, so that was really awkward. She kept trying to fuss over K and she just didn't want this women within 50 feet of her....maybe she sensed my dislike for her? So that's my week, or mainly my Wednesday in a nutshell.

K's Paralysis an FYI for Adoptive Parents from Asian & African Countries

This post is a long time coming and it's taken me since October when we finally was able to give a name to K's paralysis, to be able to discuss this. Since her diagnoses, even after all the research I had done on International adoption and diseases they may come home with , this was not even on my radar, I decided this hopefully can educate possible adoptive parents who are choosing an Asian country like Vietnam or China because this is a true possibility that it could affect your child. So here our story.....


When I meet K at her orphanage, she was 5 1/2 months old, she was still being kept in the newborn ward, which I found strange, since our travel partner's child who was only 4 months old was in a different room. When they brought K to me, she looked more like a 1 or 2 month old then an almost 6 month old, she didn't even weigh 11 pounds. The first day she was with us, she was running a super high fever. Since the Nannies didn't speak English I had a hard time trying to tell them she has hot. When they finally realized what I was saying they took her temperature and it was 104. Something else that I noticed that day and mentioned to my Mom was "Do you think she had a stroke?" I said this because she didn't move her entire right side, even when she smiled her little right lip didn't raise up like the other side. We visited her that whole week and I soon realized the reason she was being kept behind in the newborn ward was because it wasn't only newborns there, it was also children who were ill, what I didn't know was the children that were in there were considered terminally ill. All I know was she wasn't getting any better, she was still sick. Luckily they gave me custody of her that Friday. We went to the SOS clinic shortly after gaining custody and he gave us 13 different medications to treat her but he just chocked it up to a cold or flu. She continued to be sick the entire time we were in Vietnam but she had gotten better and stopped running those high fevers. And she also started to use her right hand and when she smiled her right side of her lip also lifted up, so I believed it was orphanage delay and that her leg would eventually catch up to the rest of her body.

Once we returned home to the States, K's leg continued to lag behind the other one. It never had the same strength, muscle tone and she always favored it. Her foot also turned inward and I really thought it was a club foot because it was all the classic signs of one. After months of listening to our family doctor say that her leg if just orphanage delayed, we took it upon ourselves to take K to a free Shriner's Health Screening. The Doctor there saw us for about 2 minutes and told us he thought it was a club foot. Which made us feel better. So a month after the free screening it was finally time for our appointment at Shriner's. We went in with the thought that this was something they could fix, that it was a problem in her bones. Boy were we wrong, it would hit us upside the head when they diagnosed her with a neurological disorder called Lumbar plexopathy. Basically they said that somewhere down her lumbar region her brain is not talking to her nerves & blood vessels in her right side (that is why her right foot & leg is always cold). There was no cure and no fix they would tell us. They then went on to tell us that she is now considered permanently disabled. Know the Doctors, Occupational Therapists and Physical Therapists were amazed at how well K had developed, they are amazed that K can even support weight on that leg or that she even uses her right hand and she was actually developmentally on target. She was fitted with a plastic brace that day, which K hated and within 2 hours of first putting it on, learned how to take it off. It was a battle and still do this day is a battle for her to keep her brace on. We then meet with the Neurologist in May, his news was even more heartbreaking. He said that she would never walk with out assistance. That there is a good chance she may even need a wheelchair. I walked away crushed.

My daughter on the other hand had other ideas. She decided a few months later to take her first steps, within a week, she took her first steps without her brace on either. We were amazed in absolute awe. All we could do was Thank God for the miracle he had given us because that is what those steps were. Then as I had mentioned on my September 7, 07 post, K wiggled her toes, something that no one every dreamed would happen. When she wiggled them, she even surprised herself, it was another miracle. After our visit to Shriner's, where they were also shocked, amazed, confused and wondering how she could wiggle them, they ordered a new round of tests, one of them was a nerve conduction study.

On October 30, 2007, K had her never conduction test. It was given by one of the top doctor's in the field. She was this little short, white-hair women who was probably in her 60's. The test lasted for about an hour and when we walked in she said "we know why your daughter has paralysis, she had Polio". My Mom and I stood there stunned, and I even had to ask her again to make sure I understood what she said "Did you say Polio???" and again she repeated herself. I was shocked, I couldn't think, I couldn't talk, I just wanted to grab my daughter from the Nurse that was holding her and never let go of her. I was crushed, in that moment thousands of questions I had were answered but that also left so many things unanswered. I had so much hatred for the adoption agency who referred her because I know they knew there was a problem and if they would have told me, I would have payed for any medical costs so that way she maybe wouldn't have the long term effects that she has and also she wouldn't have had to lay there for months and suffer from the Polio like she had. I lived in a fog, I couldn't talk to anyone, I pulled away from friends, family and anyone who cared. The Doctors had told me if I hadn't gotten her at of the orphanage at the time I had, she would have died in there, her Polio was that severe that they were amazed still that she was alive. Even though the SOS clinic in Vietnam didn't treat her for the correct thing, the medicines that they did give me helped save her life. K has one of the rarest forms of Polio, it only occurs in 0.1-0.2% of the population that gets Polio. It is called Paralytic Polio and it paralyzes one entire side of the body, be it the right or left. Which in K's case it was the right side, that's why I thought she had a stroke. The downside is that we don't know what the future holds for K, we battles daily pain, we don't know how much strength she will regain and there is also post polio syndrome which can hit when she is a teenager and send her right back to how she was when I meet her in the orphanage. The only thing we can do is live each day for what it is, be it good or bad, and trust me she has alot of bad days. I get asked often if I would change any of this, of course that's a silly question because I would make sure K wasn't sick at all but that's not a choice.


I wanted to share our story because trust me I did my research before adopting on possible diseases that a child coming from an Asian country can be exposed to and trust me, this was something not even on the radar. Never once was it mentioned on the Internet, state department websites, homestudy agency paperwork, adoption agency paperwork, etc, that Polio is still a very real, life-threatening disease in Vietnam, China and any Asian or African country. Since it's been non-existent around here since the 70's, it's something that never crosses our mind. There is a very real chance that your child has been exposed to Polio but luckily that it's also very rare if they have any long lasting problems. Polio presents itself like a flu, with flu like symptoms, so if your child is sick when you receive them please remember to keep this in the back of your mind that it may just not be a flu they have. So I hope I didn't scare anyone because that's the last thing I would want to do but I wanted this to at least be in the back of your brain if your child is sick when you get them because I think if someone would have told me this before I adopted, there is a good chance I would have recognized the symptoms and we would have not had to go through the anguish of the last year.

Saturday

It was nice to be able to sleep in this morning, ok it was 730am but still later than I get to sleep on a normal weekday. My back has been killing me for the last 2 months and I really thought it had gotten better but it's back to hurting. K has a cold and miserable, she won't sleep more than an hour at a time at night. My Mom is also feeling awful. But I have to say that's todays nice weather did us some good. We headed out to Wal-mart in search of buttons, we found them and a few things for Easter baskets. Luckily I still have gift cards from Christmas, so that's what we used for our Easter treats. K fell asleep in the basket and was out like a light for a good 20 minutes while we were shopping, she didn't wake up until we were putting her in her carseat. Today it was almost 70 and tomorrow it's suppose to get up to 70 and then Monday we are suppose to get ice & snow. What the heck is this weather doing? I'm so ready for the warm weather.