Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Cam in a tub









Some proprioceptive, tactile and olfactory therapy with a pocket of oranges... :)

Monday, August 25, 2008

A date for surgery



Cameron’s intraocular lenses arrived from the USA last week, and Dr Pauw wants to operate on his right eye on Wednesday 10 September, so finally we have a date for the surgery. He wants to operate on the left eye two weeks later but currently we can’t get a gap in the theatre. We’re praying that God would choose just the right date for the second op, and that the doc would be able to squeeze Cam in somewhere within two weeks after the first one.

Cam is being dedicated at Waterkloof Baptist Church on Sunday 7 September at 8h30. If you’re reading this blog then you have probably been praying for him, and we’d feel privileged if you could be there (if you are in South Africa!) to pray with us for him.

Other arbitrary news of Cam’s last couple of days… (You’ll probably want to skip this. Only his grannies would be really interested in this stuff):

Earlier this evening he was lying on our bed, playing with some toys hanging from his play gym. Three times he kicked the whole contraption right off the bed and then laughed out loud – boys will be boys…?!

He is loving his toes, which my mom helped him to discover by sewing bells onto the end of a pair of his socks. He’d never seen his toes before, I guess, but now he knows they are there and grabs hold of them with great glee.

He’s been on solids – just a smidgen a day – for a week now. I’ve also been giving him some water from a bottle each day, to get him used to it, and tonight he even drank a bit of expressed milk for his bottle. Progress!

The picture is of Cam’s first swim – our cell group was away near Dullstroom this past weekend. (The pool was heated!)

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

A word from Cameron

Hi everyone, Cameron here.

My Mom has been keeping my blog up to date but I also wanted to have a word…

I want to thank my Dad ‘cause he’s the coolest. It’s so hard for him because he fixes people’s eyes all day long but there’s nothing he can do at the moment to fix mine, and that makes him very sad. But he plays with me and makes me laugh and throws me up in the air like I’m a rocket… And he stays up very late at night while I am sleeping, finding out everything he can about what can be done about my eyes. He knows about all the fancy stuff that will help me see as much as possible, and the computers and things that will help me learn. He’s even working on this new idea to fix one of the problems that my eyes have (with the help of Grandpa, Uncle Paul Prozesky and Uncle Toby).

I also want to thank my Granny. Wow, she’s amazing! She is so good at thinking of ways to help me explore the world. She has also spent hours and hours finding out things that are helping me to develop all my other senses. She helps Mom so much, by looking after me sometimes so Mom can have a break, and by being there for Mom to talk to when she gets sad about my eyes. The best thing is that my Granny really believes in me!

Grandpa is so clever. He makes me stuff, like my light box, which helps me to see things. I love feeling his face, especially on weekends when he hasn’t shaved and it’s prickly!

My aunties are also the best. I love visiting them, and all my cousins! I love the way they cuddle and love me. They always make sure that they use my touch language so that I know what’s coming, because I can’t see if someone’s going to pick me up or change my nappy or something. I know Mom depends on them so much.

I just love my Nanna and Gramps. They are so proud of me and I know they pray for me all the time. They even sometimes set their alarm clock to wake up in the middle of the night to pray for me. And Nanna is taking some time off work later this year so that she can help look after me! She also always knows when Mom needs a hug.

I’m really grateful for Lola ‘cause she is helping to build up my immune system! She licks me all over when we come home. She also watches Mom change my nappy every time, and lies with me on the carpet when I’m playing. She chews a lot of my things but it’s not her fault ‘cause she’s still a puppy.

I think God has given me wonderful doctors and therapists. Dr Pauw, who is going to be doing the surgery on my eyes, was on holiday a couple weeks ago and he phoned Dad from Cape Town just to find out how I was doing. He really cares! I could mention so many names of amazing paediatricians, occupational therapists, physios and opthalmologists who have helped me so much, and are even praying for me!

I also want to thank all the people who have been praying for me – big people and little people, people I know and people I don’t know, Mom and Dad’s closest friends and colleagues and brothers and sisters in Christ, and people on the other side of the world who have just heard about me. Mom and Dad have so appreciated the love and encouragement. I hope that one day when I’m big I have friends like Mom and Dad’s!

I’d like to ask you to pray for my Mom ‘cause she has to go back to work on 1 September and she’s feeling sad about leaving me. She really loves her St Alban’s boys, but not as much as she loves me. I keep trying to tell her not to worry, because my doctors and therapists say that it’s a really good thing. They say that a baby like me (the fancy word for me is ‘visually impaired’, but you can also say ‘blind’, I really don’t mind) who is with his mom all day becomes a bit ‘ma vas’ and insecure because that’s all he knows. They say I need to get used to as many different people as possible so that I will be brave and confident and ready to discover the exciting stuff that’s all around me even though I can’t see it. Also, Granny and Maria and Nanna and Aunty Coral are going to be looking after me, and I love being with them!

I really don’t like drinking from a bottle, but I’m going to have to do that in the mornings while Mom’s at school, so please pray that I would get used to it.

Lastly I want to thank Jesus because He made me and He doesn’t make junk. I know that His plan for my life is the best one, and I’m excited to see (ha ha) what he has in store for me.

Thank you for checking my blog! :)

Love Cameron

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Daddy's little pirate




Cameron's left eye is stronger than his right eye. He often covers his right eye when he's trying hard to see something. Prof. Jacklin suggested we patch the left eye for half an hour a day, so that he's forced to give his right eye some practice.

It's tiring, shopping with Nici...!




Monday, August 18, 2008

The art of seeing

'Seeing is far more than sight alone. It is far more than simply looking. Seeing is appreciating the beauty in absolutely everything. It is defining the detail within the general, discerning the elements that determine the whole. Seeing is not for the sighted only but for all who are sensitive to their surroundings.' - Paul Henning

Thursday, August 14, 2008

just a few pics from this past week

Looking at shiny things with Lola
Maria and Cam playing in the garden


Playing with Liezl and Anri-Louise at the Baby Therapy Centre


Sunday, August 10, 2008

Amazing people on this road we’re walking




(photo: Cameron with Jacques)


Prof. Lorna Jacklin, who has just been awarded Woman of the Year 2008 in the category of health services, is a neurodevelopment paediatrician connected to Wits University and Johannesburg Hospital. She runs a clinic at the hospital specialising in the treatment of all sorts of disabilities in children. On Fridays the clinic treats blind and visually impaired children, and that's why my mom, Cameron and I found ourselves there very early on Friday morning. It was reassuring to realise that there are such amazing pockets of excellence within the state health sector. It was also moving and humbling to see the needs of the nation displayed in the corridors and waiting rooms of the hospital.

The Lord has really led us to remarkable, wise, encouraging health care professionals in our journey with Cameron, and Prof. Jacklin is certainly one of these people. Again we learned so much about how we can be stimulating him to maximize the vision that he does have. She shed light on why he is covering his right (weaker) eye all the time with his little fist: pushing on his eye causes him to see flashes of ‘light’ – so he’s actually trying to stimulate his retina. This can cause damage to the cornea, however, so we need to discourage him from doing it. She showed us how we can get him to localise (i.e. how to encourage him to turn his head towards the direction of a sound), how we can combine sound, sight and touch in teaching him to see, etc. She noted that Cam is very interested in language and is tuned into conversational turn-taking.

An interesting aside on political correctness: Prof. Jacklin reckons that one must certainly use phraseology like ‘Look at that!’, ‘Can you see that?’ etc, even with completely blind children, because ‘seeing’ is not something we just do with our eyes. To see something is to experience it, and we all very often use our hands or other senses to ‘see’ things.

Prof. Jacklin works with a team of therapists and after seeing her we had a session with the OT, physio and speech therapist – a similar kind of assessment as done at the Baby Therapy Centre. They reinforced a lot of what we have been doing under the guidance of the BTC therapists and gave us added insight, like minimizing all other stimulus when showing him things, bringing objects really close to his face, using dispersed light on shiny objects, supporting his head when doing visual therapy so that he doesn’t have to concentrate on holding it up and he can just focus on seeing, how to let him explore his fingers, our faces, etc so that he learns to see them.

What was such an encouragement was that, according to Prof. Jacklin and the therapists, Cam is already at the level of a 5 month old baby in terms of his ‘milestones’ (sitting, etc) - he was 4 months on Thursday 7 August – so they’ve given us ways just to keep up the momentum of his learning so that his visual impairment doesn’t cause him to fall behind in his development.

Probably the most encouraging thing about Friday’s visit to Joburg Gen was that the physio assessing Cameron also had congenital cataracts…! She had them removed when she was ten months old. She is now in her forties, has glaucoma and can’t drive, but you would NEVER suspect that she has poor eyesight. She is a brilliant, competent, gracious professional who reads and writes, also knows Braille, etc… Just amazing.

Last night Murray put Cam underneath his play gym with his favourite rubbery purple monster hanging from it. He positioned a torch behind Cam, shining it onto the monster and Cam SAW it! He played with it for ages, reaching out with both hands, putting it in his mouth, talking and laughing… We were so excited! J

Today friends had us round for lunch because they have a partially sighted friend, Jacques, who said he’d like to meet us to ‘put some wind in our sails’, as he put it. He went to mainstream schools, is married with three gorgeous kids and is a computer programmer. He said there are only two things he wishes he could: drive and make eye contact with people. Besides that, life is peachy.

This is the verse we are praying over Cameron’s life:

‘As for me, I look to the Lord for help. I wait confidently for God to save me, and my God will certainly hear me. Do not gloat over me, my enemies! For though I fall, I will rise again. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.’ Micah 7:7-8

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

The God of our yesterdays and tomorrows

A friend of mine played this song for me today (by Matt Redman) and it touched me so much. It really speaks into our lives at the moment. You can listen to it on http://www.myspace.com/mattredmanmusic

Here are the lyrics:

The God of our yesterdays

When we were in the darkest night
And wondered if our eyes would ever see the light
You were there, Lord
When we were in the stormy gale
And wondered if we’d ever live in peace again
You were there, Lord

You were there in the struggle
You were there in the fight
You were there all the time

We praise you, the God of our yesterdays
We praise you, the God who is here today
We praise you, our God as tomorrow comes

So whatever lies ahead
Whatever roads our grateful hearts will come to tread
You’ll be there, Lord
We will fix our eyes on you
And know that there is grace enough to see us through
You’ll be there, Lord

You’ll be there in the struggle
You’ll be there in the fight
You’ll be there all the time

We praise you, the God of our yesterdays
We praise you, the God who is here today
We praise you, our God as tomorrow comes

We thank you, for grace in our yesterdays
We thank you, for peace in our hearts today
We thank you, our joy as tomorrow comes

We will trust you God

You’re always closer than we know
Always more involved and in control
We will trust our lives to you
The One who was and is and is to come

We praise you, the God of our yesterdays
We praise you, the God who is here today
We praise you, our God as tomorrow comes

We thank you, for grace in our yesterdays
We thank you, for peace in our hearts today
We thank you, our joy as tomorrow comes
We will trust You God

(Spoken)

So we say “We trust You Lord, we trust You with our lives, You are so trustworthy.Your Word says “Those who know Your Name trust in You” and we know Your Name, we know that You are good, You are gracious,You are kind, You are wise, You are in control,You never let go. Thank you Lord. Yesterday, today, forever You’re the same; You never change, You never fail, You never faint. We can trust You, we can trust You.