Update on Ethan

After Ethan's 9 month appointment I had called my friend and asked her what she would do if she were me. She said she would call her daughter's physical therapist and talk to her. She called and talked to her for me and she said she would come and look at Ethan. We were thrilled since we were clueless and wanted more information before going to Children's Hospital in Milwaukee. She came over on a Friday night before my friend, her, and I went to dinner and a movie. She said that he did have a flat spot as well as some assemtry. She also said that his neck was tight and needed stretching and that we should do physical therapy (stretches) on him every time we change his diaper. She said since he had the flat spot and the assemtry (which is that his one ear stuck out more and his one cheek was swollen) that she would recommend having him banded. Kevin and I just wanted to do what was best for Ethan. She said that we would have to tell Children's to band him. Well, at least we were more prepared than before she came over.

The next week we took Ethan to Children's Hospital. It seemed that they were more concerned about his weight than anything. We weren't concerned because the doctor's have been monitoring it and he had gained weight and was back up on the charts. The doctor felt that his flat spot and everything was minimal and that some kids that are banded end up the same as Ethan was or slightly worse. She did say that he has torticollis..which is the tightening and lack of range of motion of his neck muscles. This can be from lack of tummy time. However, Ethan loved tummy time and so they decided that it was from birth or while in utero. So she wrote a prescription for torticollis physical therapy. We really pushed and pushed for the banding but it was a no go. She informed us that insurance would not cover it and it would be $3000. However, even though we wouldn't want to pay that much...cost was no issue. We wanted him banded but still no matter how much we pushed...it wasn't going to happen.

We weren't sure where to take him for physical therapy. His primary doctor said we could go to Neenah. I asked if we could go to Aurora in Oshkosh to the physical therapist that had come over to our house and was told we could go wherever. So I called our insurance to find out if Aurora was in network and it was. So we made an appointment with Karen (the physical therapist that came to our house).

We took him to Karen about a week ago. She was so impressed with how he looked. She noticed considerable improvement. She said that his flat spot isn't as flat and that his range of motion is minor now. She said that he still has some assemtry but not much. No one would notice unless we pointed it out. A lot of the improvements is from Ethan being so mobile and from us constantly doing the physical therapy at home. I believe it had been almost a month since Karen had seen him before. We were happy that we went to her since she had seen him before and would know how he looked before. We were so thrilled that he had dramatically improved. We will need to continue the physical therapy at home but we will not need to go back to see her. She said she would like to see him around his 1st birthday but she said she would come to our house. She is the best! We will continue to do the physical therapy at home until he is 3 years old. She said he definitely didn't need banded now...it was more for cosmetic purposes now. She said it is better to know earlier on if they should be banded but Ethan was borderline at 9 months. Banding should be done earlier.

Anyway...there is the update...everything has turned out better than we thought.