Jessie's First Day at Camp

We survived the first day of camp and Jessie did pretty well, despite being completely exhausted from not sleeping very well the night before.  Jessie's teacher is named Ms. Judith (pronounced Yoodit) and she is a conductor from Hungary. Each child in the class has a personal assistant helping them go through the daily routine. Jessie's assistant is Ms. Josie and she is very sweet.

The daily routine involves walking about 30 feet to the potty upon arrival, stretching for about 30 minutes, sitting, kneeling, standing, eating lunch, more walking and lots of transitions in between.  For the more involved kids like Jessie, they have 2 people helping the the child to move and transition between positions.  The idea is that through daily repitition of these movements, the child will eventually begin to make the movements by him or herself.

According to the teacher's report, Jessie had a good day (3 on a scale of 1 - 5).  She worked hard at tall kneeling during the standing program and sitting criss-cross alone. She ate well and used the potty once.

I spoke to several of the other moms and found that two of the families are doing Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) with their children.  This is an experimental treatment for CP and has not been scientifically proven to help with CP, although the treatment is FDA-approved for promoting wound healing among other things.  Both parents I spoke to said they noticed dramatic improvements in their children's cognitive functioning after HBOT.  We are going to look into getting HBOT for Jessie when we get back to Charlotte.  If anyone has any input on this, I would love to hear your thoughts!