Hi
I'm another New Zealander and am Mum to Oscar who is nearly 17 months old. We are currently awaiting an MRI for Oscar on 11th September but the most likely prognosis we have to date is a paediatric stroke or possibly CP. However, given a stroke can cause CP basically we have damage to his brain on one level or another.
Oscar does sit unaided but cannot transition to the floor from sitting or from the floor to sitting. He cannot crawl but he does roll everywhere. He can stand if you are there to watch him but uses his tummy to balance not his hands. His speech is also affected with not one word from him as yet. The day he says Mum will be a very exciting day for me as all the things I took for granted with our first son are such important milestones for Oscar. Additionally, he does not do the normal things you'd expect - waiving (well he did but stopped), clapping, reaching to be picked up etc. Intellectually all seems to be fine.
We have found this site exceptionally valuable and are kicking ourselves for not banking the cord blood of both our sons. However, I have contacts at the Leukaemia and Blood Foundation and in NZ if you bank the cord blood you cannot use it for fringe treatments such as CP or stroke here. Even if we had banked it I'm not sure if we could have got it out and would have had to transport out of NZ for use and not sure if it would have been achievable to do that and preserve it.
From what we have researched we think we will likely opt for Stem Cell Therapies in US or Regenecell. However, I would like to get a good understanding of how many they have done in this area with small children and the results.
Currently we have Oscar in Conductive Education a Hungarian based therapy for CP children five days a week which is pretty trying and tiring for the wee lad. We hope that for Oscar we can get him progressing with this treatment but like many others are hoping that Stem Cell treatment can really help him.
Kind regards
Merryn
I'm another New Zealander and am Mum to Oscar who is nearly 17 months old. We are currently awaiting an MRI for Oscar on 11th September but the most likely prognosis we have to date is a paediatric stroke or possibly CP. However, given a stroke can cause CP basically we have damage to his brain on one level or another.
Oscar does sit unaided but cannot transition to the floor from sitting or from the floor to sitting. He cannot crawl but he does roll everywhere. He can stand if you are there to watch him but uses his tummy to balance not his hands. His speech is also affected with not one word from him as yet. The day he says Mum will be a very exciting day for me as all the things I took for granted with our first son are such important milestones for Oscar. Additionally, he does not do the normal things you'd expect - waiving (well he did but stopped), clapping, reaching to be picked up etc. Intellectually all seems to be fine.
We have found this site exceptionally valuable and are kicking ourselves for not banking the cord blood of both our sons. However, I have contacts at the Leukaemia and Blood Foundation and in NZ if you bank the cord blood you cannot use it for fringe treatments such as CP or stroke here. Even if we had banked it I'm not sure if we could have got it out and would have had to transport out of NZ for use and not sure if it would have been achievable to do that and preserve it.
From what we have researched we think we will likely opt for Stem Cell Therapies in US or Regenecell. However, I would like to get a good understanding of how many they have done in this area with small children and the results.
Currently we have Oscar in Conductive Education a Hungarian based therapy for CP children five days a week which is pretty trying and tiring for the wee lad. We hope that for Oscar we can get him progressing with this treatment but like many others are hoping that Stem Cell treatment can really help him.
Kind regards
Merryn