Update on Lefty

I’m happy to report that Lefty has made lots of progress since this LAST POST where we checked in on him. 

Ryder has had about a 2 month gap in Occupational Therapy, which is where they work pretty directly with his left hand.  This really started to worry me because I want him to have the best chance possible at recovering use of his hand.  Now that he has Medicaid we were able to start OT back on Friday and we are thrilled!  His new therapists name is Abby and I can already tell that she is going to be great with Ryder and we’re going to see great results from working with her! 

As Ryder learned to walk, I noticed that he started fisting his left hand and holding really tight to his chest again.  I felt like this was moving WAY backwards from where we had come, but I now realize that he just resorted back to that for comfort and stability as he worked on his new skill.  Now that he is a professional walker, he has started relaxing his hand and actually using it A LOT more!  See for yourself (sorry I didn’t edit these videos to show you just the examples, he’s too cute to cut out all of the conversations!):

In this first video you can see how far he has come with being able to pick up a round cup without handles, using both hands.  Of course, once he gets a good grip he always lets go with lefty, but before he couldn’t even get his left hand to cooperate to help him lift it.  MAJOR progress!

In this next video you can see how well he is using his left hand to manipulate objects now.  He used to do everything one handed, but now he realizes he has another hand and uses it to help.  Basically his right hand does all the work for whatever he is trying to do, but he allows his left hand to assist.

In this last video you can see that he is finally able to pick an object up and release it with his left hand!!!  This is HUGE.  He has always initiated everything with his right hand, then handed it to his left, then forgot about it and dropped it.  But now he is getting a signal from his brain, not only to pick an object up, but also to release it!!  This brings so much joy to my heart!  He will only do it if his right hand is occupied holding something else, but it is proof that he has made major progress.  You can see that his fingers still don’t work independently of each other, he doesn’t have a pincer grasp and cannot point, so those are things we will continue to work on.

We are so proud of Ryder and Lefty as they work so hard in therapy and are constantly being pushed to their limit.  All of the hard work pays off though, as you can see, and Ryder is such a good sport through it all.  He is truly an amazing child!