CIT Week 1

Well we made it through the first week of Constraint Therapy and we’re all still in one piece!  The first day was definitely the worst, but with each day it becomes more “normal” for him to have the cast on and he doesn’t even ask us to take it off anymore.  We’ve been amazed at how much function Lefty really has this time, I guess the combination of Botox plus the casting is really working! 

He got a huge can of playdoh for his Birthday that I purposely hid in his closet because I knew it would be perfect to take out once he got his cast on.  So each night after Maisy goes to bed we have our special playdoh time.  It’s great because Lefty has to work so hard but he’s still enjoying himself. 

 

I love that I have videos to compare this stuff to from one year ago when we did this therapy for the first time.  Here he was playing playdoh with lefty then…with all of his long-haired, tiny voice, cuteness!

 

He has gained so much strength and coordination with his left hand in just 1 year.  It’s a great feeling to see all of his hard work paying off.  Here he is throwing treats to Beasley out the window…it amazes me to see him grab for something and actually get his hand to land where he is aiming, this is something he used to struggle with big time!

Having Righty in a cast is most helpful during therapy, because during a normal session a lot of time is spent trying to convince him to try something with Lefty.  He knows how easy he can do everything with Righty so he only wants to do things one-handed.  Now that he doesn’t have that option, Abby is really getting Lefty to do some challenging things that he wouldn’t have even tried before.

Just to see him able to do a normal task like eating a popsicle with his left hand is enough confirmation for me that week 1 has been a huge success.  Challenging at times but SO worth it to see our boy making progress!