HBOT summary

Before we left Orange County, California we squeezed in as many hyperbaric oxygen therapy sessions as possible, bringing our total to 138 dives since we started in May 2010. Reason being we saw such great results since we started. Out of all the alternative therapies we looked into doing for Annabelle I was most sceptical about HBOT I thought it was very expensive and that the improvement weren't consistent from child to child. There is not much information out there about how it works and how it can help brain injured children. Well I was very misinformed, luckily the doctor we saw said to us to just try 20 sessions if we saw improvements in Annabelle then we would know then that HBOT will help her, if we saw nothing then HBOT won't help her. It was as simple as that.

Well we tried 20, but it didn't take us 20 dives to realise that HBOT was going to help Annabelle, after 5 dives her hands that were permanently fisted started to open.

She gained more control over her hands and could hold onto things she couldn't before. It seeme like a light had been switched on in her head she would concentrate better at preschool, could match picture to objects, recognise colours. We were so excited after the first 40 dives we decided to do another 40.

She started to commando crawl around the house even navigating up a step then down it too. She  became curious about her surroundings looking into cupboards. Every time we did another 40 session we saw more imrovements happening.

We were so happy with California Integrative Hyperbaric Center  they were great with helping us with anything we needed and truly made us feel at home while we were there, it truly is  place of Grace just like its name says. In California we were lucky, it was really easy to do the sessions we lived only 10 minutes drive from the center. We have brought Annabelles hood with us and we are hoping to find a center here in England where we can get HBOT for Annabelle in the near future.

New Tricks

Annabelle has been really happy discovering Nanna and Grandad's house. While I have been busy sorting our things at our new house she has been happy to stay with Nanna and play, but she also has gotten up to mischief and has found out she can do new things too.

She sits in a W-sit position then she gets up on her knees then she reaches out to the chair and pulls herself up to the chair on her knees.

Then she wobbles a bit until she stabilises herself.

Then she is very proud of herself!

"Look at me Mummy I'm up here!"

MIA

Yes we have been MIA for a while this is the reason why!

No it's not a new type of pregnancy test!
It's a mould test and it reads positive!
Yes we have the dangerous type of mould in our new home! It was discovered when my decorator pulled the wallpaper?? Yes wallpaper off the ceiling? and a big patch of mould was found above, which originated from the shower in the en suite bathroom upstairs. We called the previous owners to ask them about it they said they had a leak 5 years ago and they had fixed it? Clearly not well enough! We can only assume that they also had other leaks in the shower, because when we pulled out the shower and all the tiles, behind the walls were all covered in mould. We hadn't planned on redoing the bathrooms but this has forced us too.

When we first discovered the mould a feeling of complete panic came over me, I stood there looking up at the mould on the ceiling in complete disbelief, like how could this be happening to us for the second time?
Part of me wanted to run away, another part of me wanted to cover up the mould and pretend I never saw it, but the part that won decided that we have to first test if its the toxic mould that we have, then have to clear it all away and rebuild the damaged area so that we have a clean home to move into, for our whole family recovering from our previous mould exposure.

We first had to find somewhere that tests mould samples we looked online found somebody but they could only come out in 2 weeks time that was no good. We continued our search we eventually found on Amazon this test kit from Germany, you do it yourself, it was £40.00 and you get results in 5 minutes it tests for the 2 main toxic moulds Stachybotrys and Aspergillus niger and just like a pregnancy test with the pink lines come up if its positive. Once we knew it was positve we have been very carefully remediating the area, pulling out, bagging and disposing of any of the affected area. We have also invested in a whole house air purifier that purifies the air of mould, vocs (volitile organic compounds), bacteria, pollution, smoke, bad odours, well just about any nasty substances in the air, this thing has got 4 different filters!

So this last week has been devoted to removing all the affected areas, today the last bits were removed. So now the builders can start rebuilding what was removed and we can put a new bathroom suite in (at least there is some perks to this whole ordeal I get a new bathroom!) We are still living with Martin's parents while all the work is being finished off, I am not sure how much longer they will put us up, hopefully we can get the house sorted out soon!

Jet Lag and an update

Jet lag is the funniest thing if you have never experienced it, it is worth a trip around the world to see what you are missing out. So inside our bodies seemingly we have a body clock and it gets used to waking up at a certain time, going to sleep at a certain time, eating meals at certain times. And when you travel across the world in an east or west direction and the time zone changes more than a few hours and the time changes that you would normally be doing those things your body takes a while to adapt to the new schedule so it will be 1am in the morning and you will wake up and your body will be thinking I am hungry I want dinner!

So we arrived in the UK safely after the whole family was upgraded to business class (just in case you hadn't seen my post on facebook) so we had those seats that fold down flat so you can get some sleep. Well I did not get a wink of sleep I watched Social Network and Eat pray love both great movies and before I knew it we were landing, but instead of it being 2am California time it was 10am. Luckily the homeopathic jet lag tablets got me through the day.

We crashed at 7pm that night and Annabelle woke up at 1am and the whole week she been waking up at really odd hours not going back to sleep. We give her 2mg of melatonin it helps her go to sleep but doesn't always keep her asleep. So hopefully she adapts to the new time zone soon because I am not sure how long I can do this for. Isn't lack of sleep a form of torture!

Well I am organizing a lot of things this week before our stuff (what was left over after we cleared everything out) arrives from California, we are trying to redecorate our new house. We are living with my parents-in-law while the work goes on. Lots of wall paper has been removed, carpets ripped out, and then a fresh coat of very low VOC paint put on the walls, so I am having fun choosing colours. (yes that's the English way of spelling that)

Then we are trying to get Matthew into a school you have to choose three in the area and send the application in (because he is starting mid year there might not be a space at the nearest school to us) so please prayer that he gets into one of the schools in my top three. We are homeschooling him until he gets in, which mainly consists of doing a few pages of the work book his old school gave us, and the some reading, then the rest of the day playing games with Nanna and Grandad. Oh how I love having grandparents around.

Then Miss Annabelle I have called the Hampshire county council children services and they are going to send somebody around to assess Annabelle. They also said I should call the Department of works and pensions, which I did and file in a new claim for Disability living allowance. So we should find out what this means for her and what kind of therapies we will get. I will keep you posted.