4 Year NICU Follow Up

This guy turns 4 years old in 8 short days.

Wow...I remember being warned not to blink my eyes. Every since Harrison left the NICU he has been followed by a team that has included OT, PT, Neurology along with a general physician and nurse. Yesterday he had his last follow visit from that team.

Despite the overwhelming people he saw yesterday morning, they were still able to evaluate his abilities when he was in a not so cooperative mood to candy coat that in every way.

Just so I don't end up writing a novel... The good of the appointment:

• Cognitively right on track. There is no concern of a learning disability from his prematurity which is something they generally worry about with Harrison being born at just 29 weeks.
• He grew...a lot. He now measures 39.5 inches tall (33 percentile) and weights 33lbs (25%). Most amazing is height jump from less than 15% to 33 %! This is all of this despite his vomiting 1-2 times a week. Harrison had GERD as a preemie that went on to infancy, which then resolved itself, but has made an appearance again in the last year. The doctor said that preemies with GERD then to have another reoccurrence around pre-school age. This should be something he out grows. At this time it's not affecting his growth, so we should do what we can do to avoid triggers (sugary, greasy foods), but those aren't always triggers, sometimes it just happens. Right now, this a observation period. If he begins to lose weight or vomiting because more frequent we will certainly follow up with it.
• Speech has improved with leaps and bounds. This time last year he could barely make a sentence...Today he is excelling. The amount of language gain he has made in a year brings me to tears. All the worry we had for so long is dwindling away. There are still times we find it hard to understand him or he won't use words, but those incidences are becoming less frequent. The neurologist we saw said she notices when he gets crabby he will start to "baby talk" or "regress" and won't use words. For the longest time we have been just telling him... "Use your words." Well come to find out since he has only been talking for the last year he lacks, the confidence, ability to find the words he needs to use in stressful situations. So instead of just telling him that phrase, "use your words" we need to actually give him a few words to cling on to so he has a starting place. This all made a lot of sense. There is also the drooling he still does (still at almost 4). Again, not a concern as they have told us before. He does a lot of playing with his tongue and concentration which is a result of this. It's more of wait this phase out. Which some days he does fine, others he's like a teething baby. All in all, pretty positive news.

Some things we found out at the appointment:

• Harrison is flat footed. It's not related to his prematurity, it's genetic (in case your wondering... this is where we blame dad's genetics :) There is nothing medically we have to do. We just need to make sure he wears very supportive tennis shoes.
• He has low muscle tone in his upper and lower body. The good in this, it's better to be more flexible, than less flexible. It would be a cause of concern if his muscles were too tight, like cerebral palsy. In time he should out grow this.
• He scored low in crossing the midline. Crossing the midline is important for skills such as writing. Things that can help improve this is catch and throw games, Simon says, asking his to alternate things between his hands. Harrison also is following up with the eye doctor that treated him in the NICU next month to rule out any vision related problems that could be affecting this.  

All in all despite Harrison very uncooperative mood yesterday... The outcome of this follow up was pretty awesome. This kid has came a long way.