St Louis the return trip!!!!!!

Well after a long 22 hours of travelling we finally navigated ourselves to the hotel in St Louis. It was great to be back in a familiar place.  After only being the hotel for 2 minutes we met a couple of SDR pals. 

After getting some supplies form the local Snuckes thanks to Tim for taking us. We settled down for an early night.  

Before we knew it it was Monday morning and our first chance to see the amazing children's hospital and see what Dr Park has to say about Ben's progress. Apart from arriving an hour early! Yes it was my fault!!! We bobbed to the Bread Company for a quick coffee.  

In Dr Parks office we met up with Abby the amazing media lady & Erica (from America) the fabulous PT -  it felt like being back at home.

We were called into see Dr Park office, it was like we were back 19 months previous sat there all nervously waiting to see the great man himself.  

As always in walks Dr Park full of smiles and Pleased to see us. 

We had a long chat & he also took time to examine Ben asking lots of question & answering all of ours.  He explained the areas we needed to work on & stood by his early prediction that Ben will walk the majority of the time unaided and will probably only need a stick for long distances!!! We were amazing as we thought this was where Ben would & maybe we would see a small amount of improvement but this again exceeded our expectations.  I think Ben was rather pleased too.

Dr Park Left the room, he did bob back in t say he would like to see us again in a years time - So another trip to plan!

Once we had finished we had 30 minutes until our video PT assessment with Erica, s Damian took, Grandma, Grandad & Jakey off to the zoo where we would meet them later.

Erica called us in – we had a great chat and caught up on all the gossip. We did have to do so much as it was only the things Ben could not do last time we were there.  There was lots of laughter as always when Ben & Erica get together.  Before we knew it we were all done and heading off to the zoo. 

Charlotte X

End of an era

Well that’s it; Primary school is finished for Ben.  Who would have thought all those years ago when I first dropped Ben off for his first day with his walker & splints on that he would be independently walking out by himself and been on ONE AMAZING JOURNEY. 

Ben has changed so much since, and in many many ways – the last 3 years have been the hardest by far. But as always Ben take it all in his stride!

We wish to thank every teacher & teaching assistant that has helped him along his school life.

Mrs McClean, Mrs Mitchell, Mrs Martin, Mrs Pratt (Caz) Mr Smith

Mrs Rodley & Mrs Bullock – Mrs Clarke, Mrs Ambler, Mrs Cawood

Miss Celli – Miss Allen, Mrs Bates, Mrs Lowe, Miss Laycock

Miss Hetherton – Mrs Poad, Mrs Tate, Miss Dennison (aka Otchel)

Miss Taylor – Mrs Jenner, Mrs Fischbach

Mrs Buckley – Mrs Fox

Mr Marsh & Mrs Robinson ----- To name but a few ---- THANK YOU xx

Autumn 2008

Summer 2012

And so the summer is finally here, well the weather seems to have forgotten.  Ben is loving his new found independence which has enable him to go into town with his friends & also thanks to his swimming achievement s I now feel confident to let him go to the Lido – Which he loves!

So we find ourselves in a very familiar place – looking at packed bags nervously check & re checking ticket & passports.  But this time it’s different, we are heading back to a very special place – St Louis.  This time the anxiety has gone it’s going to be more of an exciting time and we can’t wait to see everyone again.  We are also introducing Grandma Linda & Grandad Rob to our very special place St Louis & they will get to meet the great man himself – Dr Park.

We had always planned to go back & see Dr Park and his team it was just about the timing, so we made the decision in the early part of this year to make the journey back to St Louis for a number of reasons.  We have had no end of problems trying to get suitable foot orthics for Ben and fail until very recently thanks to the great team at TayCare in Leeds.  But we want the experts to give us there opinions so we can move forward as we now know Ben will always need some sort of foot support whether it is a splint – SMO (small ankle splint) or insert.   So we hope they will help us make the right decision for Ben’s future. 

Secondly we always planned to go back to see St Louis in the summer as it was such a beautiful place and will always have a special place in our heart.  We decided to combine it all with our summer holiday. 

I will try to blog a few times while we are there to fill you all in on our adventures – one thing is for sure it going to AMAZING...

A very special place!

More from across the pond later!!

Charlotte XX