Lucas Camilo

There’s a lot to write about Lucas (and Ida) and what they’ve been up to over the past few weeks.  Lucas aced his powerchair “driving test” and is now well on the way to getting a powerchair of his own — even though the insurance companies will likely resist and draw the process out for months. He’s growing fast (4 inches in the last year, up to 3 feet 11 now!) leading to new challenges around transferring him, as well as a related recommendation that he begin getting infusions every 3 months to strengthen his bones. He’s been doing really well at school and finding new opportunities to interact with his peers. Oh yeah, and he’s still completely obsessed with dinosaurs.

Among the big highlights: more play dates with friends from kindergarten, including one this last Sunday with a little girl named Keelin.  It’s still challenging to figure out activities for Lucas and his friends, but mostly they don’t seem to mind… from what we hear from other parents, just coming over and being around Lucas is a big deal for the kids.  Sunday’s play date included a trip to Lucas’s favorite neighborhood “dig site” (for amateur paleontologists looking for “fossils”) and Keelin was game.

At school, Lucas is doing an amazing job with a new assistive technology set up that involves a touch-pad for his stronger, left hand, and a keyboard projected on the wall (which will eventually be a mounted iPad or similar device.)  He’s able to use the touch-pad to hover over the letter he wants to type and then tap it to make the letter appear.  There’s a great team of therapists (occupational and speech) along with his aide that are helping make it happen.  One of them sent the video below:

Lucas also continues to love being around his little sister. In fact, every night when we do “gratitudes” (ie, talk about something we’re each grateful for that happened during the day) Lucas steps in to do Ida’s gratitude for her — in addition to his own — because “she doesn’t have words yet.” It’s always something to the effect of “Ida is grateful for snuggling with me” or “Ida is grateful for reading baby books with her big brother.” It’s quite hilarious.

Last weekend, Lucas needed some repairs to his manual wheelchair so we went out to Gig Harbor, about 45 minutes from Seattle.  The repairs were quick and easy so we decided to cruise around a little in the area and then take the long way home, via the ferry boat.  Ida slept through most of the trip, but Lucas loved it… our first 4-person family trip!