Weight-bearing

Well, we knew this was going to be difficult......oh boy, we were right! We have tried at home to do put some pressure on his foot. We've been able to get him to lay his foot on the carpet and that's it. At swim therapy yesterday, the PT's were hoping to get him to weight bear in the pool but were unable to make much progress. He did let them put his foot under the pool jets, which at this point is a start, I guess. Pat, his swim PT, wants us to work on de-sensitizing his foot by rubbing his foot on different textures and temperatures. We need to build up the tolerance to touch in that foot before we can start putting any pressure on it. She also told me "if there is any kid that can do this it's Jack. In 22 years of being a pediatric PT he has the best attitude I've ever seen." That was nice to hear, but a little confusing because at home lately his attitude has been less than positive.

Jon and I have been a little concerned with Jack the last few days. He's been very down and unwilling to even try to do things. All he wants to do is lay on the couch and watch tv or play video games. Obviously, that isn't acceptable!!! It's been really hard to watch his personality change so much so quickly. We are suspicious that the cause of it is the medicine he's taken (that we just recently up-ed the dose on). It has side effects of causing mood and behavior changes, especially in pediatric patients. Since Jack has already shown to have adverse side effects to other medications, it seems to make sense. This is really complicated because this medication is to treat the nerve pain in his foot and toes. Treating that pain doesn't do us any good though if he's too depressed to get up off the couch! He's told me many times that he can't stop thinking about his foot and that thinking about it makes it hurt worse. So now we're trying to figure what is going on. We're going to take him off the medication completely for a few days and see how that affects his pain level. I'm really hoping it causes in improvement in his mood, which would lead to an improvement in his tolerance of the pain. I feel like we're in the same situation we were with the Valium, the medication was causing more trouble than good! It's very frustrating, because you can tell he wants to have a good attitude and he wants to keep trying, but he just can't seem to get the motivation to do it!

Right now he just finished drawing pictures of himself and writing lists of everything he's going to be able to do soon. We're hoping that will give him a little bit of inspiration to start working a little harder!

Here's his self-portrait.

This says, I am Jack. I do not give up.

I am going to ride my bike.

I am going to run.

I am going to kick a ball.

I am going to walk.

I am going to swim.

I am going in a hot tub.

I will not quit.

Yesterday we went to the Japanese Gardens and had lots of fun feeding the ducks and fish. I have a friend visiting and the kids are loving having someone new and fun in house!

Feeding the enormous goldfish.

Feeding the baby ducks, while the mom watches cautiously.

Max, picture taken by Jack.

Jack, picture taken by Max.

Mia, clearly thinking that she spends her entire days stuck in that stroller.

To prove her wrong, we got her out. After being tortured by her brothers for 30 seconds, she was ready to get back in the stroller.