Tomorrow, we will be heading for our Spring visit to the ABR centre in Montreal. I am so excited because I heard so many good testimonials with the new ball-rolling technique. Well, that's sooo me. I am usually very excited in every new learning opportunity, new lessons, new books, yet keeping the momentum up till the end is another story. I am hoping this time I will keep the steam going to a point where I can share MY version of success stories.
I found ABR in 2005. It took me another year for me to decide we'll take the ABR path. As a single-income household, you really have to watch every penny and the choice of therapy sometimes does not depend solely on its validity...but on efficiency by cost, by time, and by logistics. After considering all other alternatives, (MEDEK in Toronto, Anat Baniel in San Rafael, Suit Therapy in Michigan, Family Hope Center in Philadelphia, etc...) we decide we'll give ABR a try.
In the first few months of ABRíng, I did it with new energy new commitment and the results were amazing (coupled with the fact that the body responds to all new therapy with an "awakening" response, hence the initial response almost always were better than later down the road). His abdomen which used to be folded and weak changed to a full strong ab. The shoulder blades which used to bulge out when raising his arms were back in place. I was hopeful this would eventually translate to better motor ability, stronger trunk and better balance (his major obstacle), then bingo, he'd be walking in no time. However, this isn't the way miracle happens. It is a long process....sometimes painful. Not that the therapy itself caused any pain at all (not like MEDEK, when my thumb went semi-paralyzed after the almost impossible acrobatic manipulation at Jason's ankles; nor the endless creeping and crawling of the physical program at FHC), but it's the pain for a 'seemingly' lack of progress for a prolonged period of time, and the pain to see the 'seeming' loss of some of the functional skills he had. e.g. his ability to bear weight went from minutes to just seconds, his arm-leg coordination in crawling was all confused, to a point he couldn't crawl safely without a harness wrapped around his trunk. Even though I know that this process of fascial release took many layers of unwinding to complete, it's difficult for me (or any lay-mother) to tell if this really is just part of the 'process', or if this is a true regression because of age. I even wrote Leonid an email saying ABR is like a river of no return...that it's like we have to keep going and going but we can never stop because I'm afraid I would be leaving him in a ragdoll state of (non-)functions. But he replied saying that it's actually CP (cerebral palsy) that is the river of no return. (yea, cerebellar hypoplasia could be placed under the broad umbrella of CP) It was until then that I realized what we've done through ABR was actually helping to reduce the damage CP would have done to our kids. When I saw his calf muscles growing, I couldn't help but think "doesn't this defy the rules? cuz non-walking CP kids usually don't have calf muscles?".
And when I heard all the exciting testimonials about the new ball-rolling technique that I'm going to learn in this trip, I am all the more hopeful than ever. I know this is the breakthrough we all need at ABR. We need not just something that works, but works efficiently. With this newly injected dose of confidence, I hope Jason will benefit from this new technique real soon.
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