Shyann, Seth, and dogs' journey

November 11, 2008 - This is just a begining to my world involving an apraxic daughter, brilliant son, four dogs and a world that feels like it's falling apart. Oh yeah, I have a husband too. Sometimes I forget that fact. He's never around, at least for being a husband or father, but always there to drive me nuts and try to steal time away from my passions; my children and dogs. If I go in chronological order, my dog Teddy came first in my life. He is a Chinese Sharpei, 13 years old, and nearing the end of his days. Everyday with him I cherish. He's been a hero, a friend, and more faithful than the husband that came later. Next came Holly, a female Chinese Sharpei. She is now 10 years old, near-blind, near-deaf, and able to smell her way around her world - which is mostly following me, laying at my feet, sleeping at the foot of my bed, sniffing for food, and sniffing for places to relieve herself (which has been growing to indoor options unfortunetly). A month after Holly entered my world, so did my husband. Drop-dead gorgous, a decade younger, and totally irresistable to me. I was 36 by the time I met him and had 17 years of infertilaty behind me. Six months later I was pregnant with my first: Shyann Autumn. She came a month early weighing in at 6.4 lbs. She was the most beautiful newborn I had ever seen. An opinion shared by nurses, doctors and family alike. Almost two years later to the day came a son, Seth Allen. He was full term and looked like E.T.; an opinion also shared by others. I had fully planned to return to work; however, I wanted to wait till Shyann could talk. I wanted her to be able to tell me anything that was happening at a daycare center (I was in Houston at the time, and horrible stories of terrible things occuring at daycares were circulating at the time.) But Shyann didn't talk. I wasn't too surprised..at 9 months of age I noticed she never babbled as most infants did. At 18 months she had no words at all. I knew she would become frustrated at the lack of communication so we began sign language - something she picked up on quite quickly. When Seth was within crawling stage, and Shyann was nearing age three, Seth began signing - much to my surprise! I never imagined such a young infant could communicate his wants and needs. He even told me what babyfood he wanted or drink he prefered. And he was still taking his fluids in a bottle! But then I never imagined how brillant he would turn out to be. All during this time I had a husband, didn't have him, had him; didn't; did; and so on and so forth until the last "did" stuck. And all that within a year! I had always been self sufficient so having him around was more or less for fun. Plus his kids liked him.



My will to return to work when Shyann could talk faded. By the time she was three years old, I quit listening to the doctors I had worked with and trusted and took it apon myself to take her to a speech pathologist. She was diagnosed with apraxia, a medical term I was quite familiar with. As a nurse I had worked with stroke survivers with apraxia, a condition where they could no longer find the words they wanted to say. The part of the brain controlling language was damaged during their stroke, and sometimes they re-learned to talk; sometimes they didn't. The Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) that diagnosed Shyann suggested therapy for 45 minutes at a time, 3 times a week. Within two weeks Shyann's vocabulary, which consisted of "guy, guy, guy", improved to "a, ee, i, oh, oo". The SLP (Caroline Whittmire, Houston and/or Kingwood TX) worked miricles. In 1.5 years Shyann's vocabulary was within normal age-range, if not higher, but remained highly unintelligable. I figured Caroline had stimulated a part of her brain to "take over" speech, and that as she matured, other parts of her brain would open up and improve her speech. There was so much I didn't understand! Looking back, I had had a hard delivery. My O.B. had just had a baby of her own so a visiting O.B delivered Shyann. The woman was entirely enamored with my husband, looking at him more than the crowning infant! Of which continued to crown for two and a half hours, and then with my absolute last reserves I managed to push her out - in an unnatural presentation. Her elbow emerged with her head; her forarm and hand crually pressed against her face in an unnatural position causing her lips and mouth area to be bluish-bruised. (These quickly faded, thank God!.) This doctor complained of being so tired from standing on her feet, never thinking how tired I was after pushing a total of three and three-quarter hours, that she quickly delivered the placenta leaving a piece still adhered to the uterine wall. After 8 weeks of odd bleeding followed by a smaller delivery of placenta I finally healed. Three years later, Shyann's diagnosis of apraxia just seemed to confirm my belief that damage could have been done to her brain during her delivery. I blamed myself.