Sooner Start

I guess I “put the cart before the horse” so to say. We were getting help from Sooner Start before we even knew to start any other therapies. Sooner Start is the early intervention (EI) program that is offered here where we live.

When Cole was released from the NICU at the hospital we were hooked up with this EI program. The first step was to meet our case worker (I guess that is what I would call her) and she scheduled for an evaluation to see if Cole qualified to be on the program. They had a couple of people come out and he qualified for help as he would not follow a pen light (normal since he was so young, but ok since it led us further to where we are now).

Since Cole qualified we were assigned a wonderful sweet lady named Kim (see pics below). She is the kindest person ever! She originally just came in once a month to check in on us. Then one day she asked if I would mind if she brought a PT (physical therapist) in to look at Cole.

So, Kim brought Lisa (whom has since moved out of state) in to see Cole and asked me to take him back to his neurologist and see what he thinks since he had previously released Cole (or so we thought-that’s a whole other story).

It was decided we should start PT for Cole because he was obviously having a hard time opening his hands. Lisa (Sooner Start) would come out to the house to do his therapy and show me things that I could do at home to help.

This is when they gave us these little neoprene splints (Bendix ??) to put on his hands to help hold them open. He still wears these and I think they have helped a lot. He does get frustrated sometimes with them on but since it helps, he just has to suck it up and work with them on.

Once Lisa left, Kim brought in Mary for his PT from Sooner Start and she works her magic with him every other week. We have also met with and will be starting with Lindy for speech therapy (ST) on the opposing weeks to strengthen his muscle tone around him mouth. We hope this will ensure that he can talk later but just in case, we are also working on sign language (also another post later).

We are in debt to Kim, Lisa, Mary, Lindy and Susan for all that they have shown us. I would not have thought to take him back to his neuro had Kim not asked to bring in Lisa because she saw something going on! Thank you so much guys!