Diagnosis

I am guessing, like anyone starting a blog, you don't know where to begin. I'm just going to dive right in. We have an incredible 17-month- old little girl named Cecilia.

Pretty early on I noticed that Cecilia favored her left hand. I research everything, so I read a few articles. I found out that babies can show a preference as early as 6 or 9 months, but they should be relatively ambidextrous until the age of 2 or 3. As she got older she hit all her developmental milestones towards the end of the age range, but always made it. She was happy and healthy and no one suspected anything was wrong.

Once Cecilia started crawling she did what we called her pirate crawl. She held her right leg stiff to the side. After crawling for a month or so she did crawl in a more traditional way. At her 12-month-appointment she was just starting to walk holding our hands. Just before her 15-month-appointment she took her first steps. Woohoo! First steps are so exciting.

As she started walking more she kept her right leg stiff, which we made sure to point out to her pediatrician. After some discussion during her appointment we were going to be sent to physical therapy and a dietician. Oh, I didn't mention she is a peanut too. She fell off the growth chart a few months ago, but we are not big people and she eats well so, whatever.

When the hospital called to schedule the appointments they said she would be seeing a physiatrist. I had never heard of this kind of doctor before. Here is a definition if you are interested. http://www.aapmr.org/condtreat/what.htm

It took us a month to get in to see Dr. Steve, the physiatrist. We saw him on the afternoon of September 9th. Dr. Steve examined Cecilia for a few minutes. He said to us "did your pediatrician talk to you about why she sent you." Uh, no. "There is a very broad spectrum, but Cecilia has very mild cerebral palsy."

My reaction probably seemed unemotional. I need information. She will need to have an MRI, wear a brace on her right foot, physical therapy, occupational therapy. It is a lot to take in when you go in to a doctor's office thinking that something might be off, but you can't imagine getting a diagnosis that sounds so scary.

We feel so lucky that the only apparent damage is a mild mobility issue. It won't get worse. We know what we are facing now and we can deal with it.

So, next step MRI.