Cade's Adventure

On Tuesday, Cade had his yearly NICU follow-up clinic. Instead of telling him that we were going to the doctor, I told him that we were going on an adventure. The last time we had to go to the doctor he got really worried so I thought I would spare him the worry before we got there. It turned out that he mostly got a chance to play with the nurse, Lois. He was being tested of course but didn't know it. They checked his verbal, cognitive, fine motor and large motor skills. It was fun for me to see how his brain works without being the one asking him questions. If I had been the one testing him, I would have gotten alot of no's and I don't know's just because that's the way he is with me. But, he was very cooperative with Lois. So cooperative in fact that Lois told us that he was the best kid that she had that day. At one point, I think Cade may have lifted his shirt and she saw his scar, she said to me, "Oh wait. That's right. He had a grade 3 brain bleed and has a shunt. He shouldn't be doing this well." It was great to know that his brain damage doesn't seem to be affecting him. I pretty much knew this but it was nice to have it confirmed once again by someone who sees preemies everyday. At the end of the testing, we learned that Cade maxed out the verbal section. This means that his verbal skills are beyond what is expected for a 45 month old. His cognitive skills were at 36 months but there were quite a few answers that he couldn't get scored on because he would answer 2 out of 3 things right. To get scored, he had to answer 3 out of 3. His fine motor skills were at 37 months and his large motor skills were at 35 months. So, he is right on track. At the end of the evaluation, he met with Dr. Hoekstra who was one of his NICU doctors. We hadn't seen him since the NICU. If you've ever seen the Childen's commercials about the preemies, he's the doc in the commercial. He did the physical check on Cade and everything was OK. His exact words were, "He's miraculous." Pretty great coming from the guy that sees preemies all day long. We are so proud of our big boy.