Lows and Highest Highs

December 8, 1992, a Friday. We took B to OT and then on into PT. The therapist told me that he was very pleased with B’s progress. When he’d started working with him he couldn’t even roll over yet. And here we were just a few short months later and he’d made incredible progress. He told me that normal walking takes place between 11 and 15 months. B was only about 6 months from walking. Which would only be a 3 month delay. It didn’t sound good to me, till he reiterated how far behind he’d started. OH, OK !


I took him from the OT to a new doctor. A Pediatric Endocrinologist. They’d referred him to this doctor because he was still not growing. He was born at 9 ½ pounds and here he was at a year, he should have been 27 pounds, but he was only 18. Not even double his birth weight!

The doctor examined him, and in pure B style … he threw up all over the doctor.

He asked about the eczema on his cheeks and what we were doing for it. I told him. His jaw gapped open. He said “stop. NOW!” He told me that steroid’s can cause growth issues. I knew that, because of the times we’d had to use it for lung issues. It never occurred to me that it could be the same with a skin cream!

We stopped treating the eczema and within weeks his growth started to happen.

We started to plan his first birthday party. The 15th we’d set aside the time to focus on the plans. We woke up to B screaming. Raging fever .. coughing, you could hear the congestion when he tried to breathe. He wound up in the hospital, with pneumonia, again.

His birthday party got put on hold. But he spent his first birthday in the hospital. This brought painful memories for my husband who had spent many of his childhood birthday’s in the hospital. D had several nightmares that week, and I was worn to a frazzle.

My Dad arrived for a Christmas visit on the 21st. The day we brought B home from the hospital. We talked a lot about B’s progress in PT and his health, my health, D’s health. But we had a good Christmas. Dad had gotten S a cherrio’s game for Christmas and he was thrilled with it.

B got a walker that had been recommended by the PT …one that could pull himself up to a stand and use to push around. Every gift he had was related to his development. I was torn between knowing that to him, they were toys, to me, they were necessity.

Thursday night, late, D & S were sleeping and my Dad and I were watching Yentl on PBS. B was playing on the carpet between us. Suddenly, he turned to me, pulled himself up to a stand, toggled a bit as he turned toward my Dad and took 3 steps! Dad caught it on film.

S had taken his first steps on Father’s Day when we were in California visiting my Dad for my brothers wedding. Now he was here for B’s first steps. For a grandfather who was half a country away, it was quite remarkable.

The next day we had to take B to OT and PT. We walked in, and I had no intention of telling the therapist what had happened the night before. B had repeated walking, so I knew it wasn’t a fluke. I had planned on just letting him surprise the PT during his session. We walked in and headed to the OT gym first. His PT was coming toward us. He took one look at my face and squealed like a 13 year old girl. “You’ve got to be kidding me! He took his first steps didn’t he?”

I’m guessing playing poker wouldn’t be a wise idea for me.

At 9 months, he could not turn over, at 1 year 1 week and 2 days, he was taking his first steps. The first of many miracles.