It's been awhile....

SO, life got crazy and I have not been on Kale's blog in a long time......
I am going to make an effort to get on here and update on his progress more frequently.
Well, summer is here and it has been a rough start to our summer. Rainy weather and now cooler temperatures have made it difficult to keep Kale occupied and happy when all he wants to do is swim!
Kale has been fighting a very bad yeast overload in his gut and a BAD bacteria as well. The bacteria is called Clostridia and it's evil! It makes him very aggressive at times, unhappy and very irritable. We treat the Clostridia with Vancomycin- a very potent antibiotic. He just finished a two week round of the Vanco as well as a two month dose of Diflucan for the yeast.
He has had a couple of really good days this week. He finally had some good therapy sessions with Becky this week also!

His verbalizations are increasing daily. He is presenting with echolalia right now, but I will take it. He is repeating much of what I say when I ask him to. He is using his communication device to produce 5 word sentences. This is such a wonderful step for him!

He turned 7 on June 2nd. We celebrated with a party with his friends and family and he had a great time. This birthday was terribly hard for me...mostly because I had certain expectations for Kale...expectations that I had put a timeline on. In my head, I had thought he would be verbal by the time he was 7. So, needless to say, when his birthday came around this year, and the fact that he is still, for the most part, non-verbal, it was a hard realization to face.
I allowed myself some time to get over it and we are moving ahead again at full throttle to get those words out! I know his voice is in there and I am not going to stop until I get to hear it on an everyday basis! :)

We are modifying his diet to help control the yeast and bacteria growth. Wish me luck...it's not going to be an easy change!