HYPERBARIC OXYGEN MONTH
Well, we've just completed 27 days (2 hours a day + 1 hour commute from Abbotsford to Richmond) of oxygen therapy at the Richmond Hyperbaric Health Centre. Started July 4, finished August 3rd (6 days a week, Sundays off from 10am-12pm: the best shift of the day as we totally missed any rush hour!) One of the most important changes was Luke had a nervous eye-blinking "tic" that he developed the last week of kindergarten; this disappeared after 30 hours of oxygen. Yay. I had researched it and wasn't too concerned about it (occurs in typical children, and is a passing phase but can take up to a year to go away); but that's the thing about O2... you never know where you'll see the differences. Below is a list of "new" things we noticed Luke saying on a daily basis. Speech has been our biggest concern and knowing that after the first set of 40 hours in 2009 he began first words; and after the second set of 40 hours in 2010 he began speaking in sentences; our hope was an exceleration of speech and conversation... our hopes were realized, even after the first day!!

• Day 1: Arguing with Joel about what to play, "I get to choose! Basketball!!!"
• "Why do I have to wear the hood?" (He had never before asked questions about the "submarine"!)
• Biting an apple: "I can't bite it. What should I do?"
• "Mom you come here, turn on the cartoons, and put a blanket on me." (as he was sitting on the couch early in the morning... quite a mouthful!)
• "I don't want to wear the hood!" Why don't you want to? "Because it hurts!" (It only hurts a little with the latex seal around his neck... we discovered it was quite tight and leaving an indentation in his skin so they kindly enlarged it... this was the same one from 2 years ago, so it makes sense that his neck size grew a bit!)
• At night, after getting out of bed 5 times to go to the bathroom... we finally "talked" about why: "I can't see in the dark" so I turned a night light on for him and he went to sleep.
• Still at night, getting up often even with the light on... he pointed to the furnace "I don't want that on" (must have been a new noise in his aunt's house that he was a little afraid of!)
• At night, waking up from a dream "I don't like the vacuum!!!"
• When we dropped Joel off at Grandpa and Grandma's on our way to the O2 Centre, I decided to park on the road in front of there house instead of their driveway as Grandpa was chauffeuring us on that day... "Why are you parking here?"
• Going up the stairs with him right behind me "Wait for me! I'm coming too!!"
• After reading a book about dinosaurs having a dinosaurumpus / dance and then all tumbing in a heap and falling fast asleep, Luke decided "I want to sleep outside."
• We read Goldilocks and the Three Bears about hundred times (in the submarine) and every time we got to the part about them making porridge for breakfast I would ask Luke what he had for breakfast, and 50% of the time he would get it right :)... gotta work on consistency still haha.
• After riding in Grandpa and Grandma's car to the submarine, he took a small pillow Grandma has in the car and said "I'm going to take this pillow to Auntie Betty's and take a nap."
• After lunch at Tim Horton's with Grandpa one day after the submarine, and it was raining, he said "Hurry up! It's getting rainy" as we ran to the car.
• At night: "It's scary in Auntie Betty's house. I need the light on."
• Driving to North Vancouver to visit Uncle Paul, Luke was looking out the window and saw a lot of people on a big lawn area. He said "Look at those guys, they're having a party."
• One day he did not need me to entertain him in the submarine. This is a big deal to me, lol, because for the first time in almost 120 hours that I could read my novel instead of Goldilocks and Dinosaurumpus, lol.
• Going through the Massey Tunnel in Richmond every day, I would occasionally point out the river just before and then the tunnel. One day he said "It's dark in here."
• Day 20 (30 hours) we realized we hadn't seen the nervous eye-blinking tic that had developed since about June 26. Woo Hoo. Bonus oxygen reparation!!
• Looking out the window (all at once), "There's a truck!" "Look at that white truck!" "There's an airplane!" "Look at that car!"
• Checking out the fresh raspberry bushes with Auntie Lorraine in the park next to her house: "Raspberries are delicious. Don't eat them all, save some for me!"
• Joel and Luke took off their shirts in the car (with a little help from mom... it was a very hot day). When they came to Auntie Betty's house and we're running around half-naked, Auntie Betty said to Luke: Where's your shirt? and he replied instantly "I don't know, must be in the car!"

At the end of the 40 hours Luke also one day decided to "dry his hands". For the past 3 years since beginning preschool we have been teaching him to wash and dry his hands, and would never dry them properly. The last day in the submarine we went to the bathroom as always and washed our hands and this time he took the paper towel and said "Dry my hands" and dried his arms and both sides of his hands thoroughly... both arms. My jaw dropped. He has not consistently done this since, but knowing he can and did means it will come. Not that I was ever really worried, but it was one of those things that was a long time coming!

I was also very pleased with his memorization of the books we read everyday. Towards the end of the 27 days he was reading (by memory, not "reading") Dinosaurumpus, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and The Frog in the Bog. His little voice in the hood was so adorable and quite quiet, so sweet to hear! Every step closer to readin

He was fairly social in the submarine... great eye contact with people and even being so bold as to sit on some of the parent's / technician's laps. He took a real shine to Olivia, Sam (technicians) and Mike (parent) and would occasionally sit on their laps. He also ran around a bit with one of the other young boys (E, who is 4 years old), it was fun watching them be a bit mischievous together.

One other new development was Luke finally peed in the toilet standing up. This has never been an issue for me since the longer the boys pee sitting down, the cleaner our bathroom is (lol); but I was hoping he'd learn to do this in time. And now if we "gently persuade" him he obliges, so that's very cool. I think he was always a bit nervous to try it and was not as comfortable/confident with his body posture and control. He's watched his brother and dad do it many times, so I'm glad he finally attempted and succeeded. Joel was a big helper between his demonstrations, encouragement, and refusal to let the toilet seat down.

We made some new friends in the submarine this year and I just want to thank them for our time together. I loved swapping therapy and supplement and doctor stories with people who really understood eachother. It was awesome. Hope to stay in touch with many of them.... thanks to Facebook! At times we even actually had a lot of fun... one particular day Linda and Olivia made me laugh so hard and loud... how therapeutic; I'll never forget that. Special thanks again of course to the team at Centre... great people who come in on Saturdays and stat holidays to run the submarine for us. HUGE thanks also to my great family for watching Joel and some days driving Luke and me to Richmond. Everyone was amazing and unbelievably supportive... accommodations, dinners, gifts, babysitting, hugs, nights out, company, and love. I am still overwhelmed.

Negatives: He's still a little OCD about doors, and now more specifically about garage doors. His aunts and grandparents allowed him to close the garage doors (automatically) which was sweet of them. He's very concerned that they need to be closed... as well as the submarine door. We're also still working on "personal space"... he tends to put his face very close to others for whatever reason. The other parents in the tank were very gracious about Luke getting up close in their faces, which was funny to watch as he could only get so close because of the "hood". He can still be a bit repetitive, but that's definitely not as bad as it used to be. He still has some communication issues such as: "special needs talk" which is the term I coined to describe that incoherent strange noise people on the "outside" would deem as an obvious sign of special needs / delay. It is, of course, less and less and quite off he does it intentionally and thinks it's funny; unaware of course of what people may think of him. This is truly what I love about Luke at this point in his recovery: he is not that concerned with other's perception of him (yet).

The BI (Ms. S.) came by to do a little ABA which took Luke a little while to warm up to again. She did notice he was more calm, more aware, and was talking a bit more.

While on the coast, Luke enjoyed his 7th birthday with family and friends. He opened his gifts, blew some candles out on his cake, and was a bit tickled to have everyone sing "Happy Birthday" to him. He is still not overly enthusiastic about presents or toys, but definitely has more interest in the whole celebration than ever before. He has to sit on someone's lap the whole time attention is focused on him (ie while opening presents) as I think he's a bit anxious / overwhelmed by all the commotion and fuss about him. He certainly loves cake! (okay maybe just the frosting, lol). Speaking of which, I don't know if I mentioned my awesome new GFCFSF chef: Silvana Nardone, editor for Rachael Ray http://silvanaskitchen.com/. I have friended her on facebook and have used many of her awesome recipes from her cookbook "Cooking for Isaiah". She has created the best ever chocolate birthday cake recipe, waffles, banana bread, cookies, etc. I am her biggest fan.

We also met with Dr. Bratt and were pleased to report all of Luke's progress. We will be starting Respen-A mid-August which involves taking Luke off fish oil for the duration of the treatment. www.respen-a.com (also available on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Respen-A/123142187742874?ref=ts ). The potential results of this product include increased concentration, better eye contact, more socialization, less irritability, decreased anxiety, and some children who were unable to speak are now trying to verbally communicate once again.

Joel: Joel has been awesome and LOVED the time on the coast with all his family, aunts, cousins, etc. He was carted from here to there without much grief from him despite the fact that he is 4 and has always been a bit shy and attached to mom. Last summer he would cry when dropped off at Grandpa and Grandma's but not anymore. Yay! The biggest shock came when he really, really, really, really wanted to sleep over at Auntie Susan's house where his cousins Tim and Brad live (they're 21 and 17). I did not think at all that he was ready for a sleepover, but he kept insisting and Susan was game, so I agreed since it had to happen sometime and where safer / better than my twin's house?! He fell asleep first where we were staying as Susan wasn't going home until much later at night, but I promised I would wake him up and ask again before he went. He said I was the best mom in the whole world :). When it was time for him to go, I couldn't wake him up so we just loaded him up in her car and said good-night. I was a little sad but only for a minute, lol!!! Anyways, apparently he woke up in her big bed (her husband was away for a few days) at 4:30am and said "Mom, Mom.... remember you said I could sleep at Auntie Susan's?" and Susan answered: "Yes, you're here!" and he immediately sat up, and had a huge smile on his face!! Susan told him to go back to sleep and he slept until 7am. That morning was Tim's 21st birthday so he got to watch Tim open presents. Tim and Brad did not believe he was there, and had to see it to believe it. They totally thought he would cry in the morning (as did I), but he didn't! He loved it and wanted to do it again a couple night's later!

While in the submarine, another mother eloquently explained that her son just "thinks differently". I've been stealing that phrase to explain to Joel why Luke doesn't always respond or do things the way we want him to. I like that explanation. Luke just thinks differently... and there's nothing wrong with that!!