Reflections of 2007

This last year was a ride. God has brought us through much.

In January last year, the developmental testing on Benji came back poorly. Benji's communication skills were more than 40% delayed. His gross motor skills were delayed, just all around the results were bad. We did take into consideration that it was an updated test and it was the first time Benji was evaluated on it. We couldn't deny though that Benji wasn't communicating and was getting frustrated and overwhelmed.

March is when we discovered that Benji loves silky fabrics. He stole a night gown from me until we went to Wal-mart and bought a yard of satin. He loves his silky and is rarely seen without it nearby. His 2 yr check up put him at 36 inches and 28 pounds. This month also found the little guy exploring. He was caught in the dryer and also caught on Papa's ATV.

In May Benji had is heart check up. Things seem to be staying the same at this point but Benji wouldn't really cooperate enough to get complete readings. There was minimal change though in the readings that Dr. Hermo did get.

Summer brought speech evaluation, the spring fling, the pool, and more. Mrs. Kathleen at NHC did Benji's speech eval. It came back that Benji was at the age level of a 14 month old. (He was 28 months at the time) So he started speech. Benji enjoyed the annual spring fling at the fair grounds with the rides and such. The kicker was that we discovered Mr. Benji LOVES the swimming pool. He loves getting in the water and playing and splashing and hanging out on the floats. Also during the summer we had the reading challenge at the local library. The kids enjoyed this but especially Benji. He still won't sit through and entire book reading, but he likes stories.

August brought Benji's first trip to the ER. He smacked into the church pew and gouged a chunk out of his forehead. First thing we did after applying pressure was pray for the little guy. We then took him into Children's. He was so calm and actually slept through the stitches. He has a scar but it's not that bad.

September we started going to storytime at the library. Benji enjoyed it but he had alot of problems staying still and listening. We only went a couple weeks. We also got used to the new nursery at church. Benji really likes it and enjoys going. Made us greatful we changed churches. It's a big difference when your spiritual side is being fed fresh food.

October was busy with going to the circus and playdates and having a cookie day. While Benji did well we did notice a bit of overwhelming sensory stuff. Thankfully we were able to keep it in check.

November brought more questions than answers. Benji had his heart check up, his developmental eval and turkey day. With his heart check up we got the praise of he is stable. The valve and stenosis has been unchanged so we don't have to worry too much about surgery right now. The developmental eval gave us more questions than answers in that they recognize that something is going on, but he doesn't match the typical things. He doesn't qualify under Asperger Syndrome due to the speech delay and he don't qualify under PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder) because he gives eye contact. So... we still don't know what is going on.

December brought us a major scare with Benji. Dec 8th Benji went into seizures and we went by ambulance to the ER. We thought we were going to lose him. Instead God has blessed us. He is suddenly talking much more, after about a week of coordination problems he is alot more stable, and the last week or so he's been wanting to go potty... on his terms of course. Through blood work and such they diagnosed Benji with Ketotic Hypoglycemia. It is a diagnosis of exclusion. Otherwise because it isn't anything else, they diagnose the Ketotic. We've had no more episodes of low sugar, but the doctor thinks it was because Benji had alot of congestion and didn't eat very well the night before the episode.

Christmas went well even though Benji did get overwhelmed with everything. He had three meltdowns the month of December. 2 in Walmart and 1 at home. They were full blown meltdowns too... worrisome but manageable. Just wish that people were more understanding.

So on to 2008!