Saturday, July 28, 2007

Still waiting

We're still waiting for insurance to approve the surgery. I received an email from our case management worker at the insurance yesterday and they have reviewed the material (we gave them an expandable folder full of info on bilaterals) but the request from the doctors office for the surgery did not include a letter of medical necessity which they need. Of course when I contacted the doctors office he was on vacation this week and won't be able to get it to them until next week.
We had a speech therapy session this week. Landon is doing great on everything and meeting all of his developmental milestones - except for sitting. He's doing better then he was - has a lot better head control and is sitting in the tripod position. One of the physical therapist stopped by the room to get something and started playing with him so we asked her about the sitting. When she checked him she said it looks to be all a part of his balance and vestibular system being off because of the hearing loss. The back arching seems to be what is hindering him so hopefully he'll outgrow that soon. She said to just keep watching and make sure he keeps improving and if we decide we want to that she would work with him. His brothers didn't sit until 9 months and that was still with the boppy pillow to help balance and catch them. For right now the consensus is that it is a combination of just late sitters in the family and balance problems from not hearing. We'll see how he is doing in the next couple of months and go from there.

3 comments:

Drew's Mom said...

I know this is crazy, but I truly think that the surgery does something to "correct" their balance. I know we talked about how neither Landon or Drew were sitting really well when they were over 8 months old. Seriously, the day after surgery he was able to sit on his own. I can't explain it any other way: the surgery fixed something with his vestibular system. That is the only thing that changed.

I wonder if Drew would be sitting now if he had not had surgery when he did. I doubt it.

Is Landon crawling yet? Pulling up? Drew does an army crawl and can get on hands and knees. No pulling up yet.

Eric Seneca said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Gina Morgan said...

Hi,
I just came across your blog and wondered if I could ask you a few questions. My daughter, Charlotte, was born 7-17-07. At about 3 months of age she was diagnosed with auditory neuropathy and probable profound hearing loss. We are currently undergoing a trial of hearing aids. She also has gross motor delay in that we are still working on good head control. We have a great physical therapist and she is getting stronger. But obviously not sitting yet. It sounds like your son had the same types of balance issues.

You also mentioned the back arching. My daughter does that constantly from birth. The doctors attributed it to acid reflux (she was tube fed for the first few months b/c she hated to eat). but she eats now and still back arches when she is in an uncomfortable position. I think its just reflexive on her part.

Anyway, if you have a moment, here is my email...ggtmorgan@yahoo.com

Thanks!

Gina