Exciting Weekend Plans

Jack will be going on his first field trip on Friday! And he's not even in school yet! He will be going to the zoo with Amanda and her class. It will be his first time to the Milwaukee County Zoo and I am sure that he will have loads of fun.

We will be staying at my parents house over the weekend while they are out of town. We are planning to cook some steaks on the grill, enjoy the backyard and relax, just like we are on vacation. On Sunday we are planning to take the boys on the East Troy Railroad. They are going to have a ball! I will make sure to post pictures for everyone to see. Monday we will be going to a barbecue at Lydia's- the boys are already counting down the days!!

Next week we are going to be seeing a Neuro-Otologist and a Psychiatrist for Tom. I will post an update after these appointments.

Tom Update

Tom did great with the ENG today. We found out that the inner ears are not the culprit of the problem. We did find out that he has some eye movements that suggest an abnormality of the brain. We had thought that a tumor had been completely ruled out however with his symptoms and the test results that we had today the word was brought up again. Turns out his original MRI was only done on the brain and did not include the brain stem. We were referred to another Neurologist and also a Neuro-Otology doctor. They will do additional tests and hopefully rule out a brain stem tumor. We will also go back to the ophthalmologist again next week to see if he has any thoughts about the eye movement. At this point we are trying not to get ahead of ourselves and start worrying about everything but your positive thoughts and prayers will be appreciated. I will post another update when I have one.

Quick update...

We spoke to the pediatrician on Monday. We decided to take Tom off of all of his medication, it does not seem to be making any dent on him getting sick and it may be affecting his behavior. Tom will see a psychiatrist at the end of the month and it will be important that he is non medicated for this appointment. We have an ENG scheduled for tomorrow morning. This will rule out whether some of his problems could be due to an inner ear problem. The audiologist said that it is a pretty grueling test to be done on a 5 year old. Tom has been brave through everything though so I hope he will do better than expected with this also.

Jack has been doing well with his potty training. We are not going to push him, just let him go at his own pace. Slow and Steady wins the race!!!

I just finished reading Wish by Melina Gerosa Bellows...in one day! It is that great of a book. I am excited to get back to the library to find another great book. I forgot how much I love to read.

Adam has been busy with work during the week and yard work on the weekends. We are trying to get our yard all set so we can enjoy the summer.

Tom Update

Here is where we are at with Tom right now...

Yesterday we had Kindergarten Orientation. I was pleased to see that some of the kids that are in Tom's kindergarten readiness class are also going to the same school for kindergarten. We spoke to the school psychologist, who we had already had contact with earlier in the year and she recommended a summer school program for Tom. We are also on the waiting list to go to see a doctor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Children's Hospital. We hear she is one of the best in the country to diagnose and recommend treatment for autism. We should get an appointment in September or October. In the meanwhile we are hoping to figure out why Tom is getting sick so often. We go to an ear, nose and throat doctor tomorrow. We have various tests throughout the month and then at the end of the month we will go back to the GI doctor and then the Neurologist. We were told that he needs to be evaluated for Anxiety and Bipolar disorder as well. I am waiting to see what all of these test say before I want to take him to another doctor that will prescribe more medicine though. From what I am finding out childhood Bipolar Disorder is very controversial so I am going to have to be careful which doctors I choose if we end up having to go down this path. I will give another update when there is more to share.

The New Neibauer Family Blog

Hi everyone!

I was lucky enough to get this great website as a Mother's Day gift from Kami's family! What a great gift. I will be updating it frequently with information about what is going on with our family as well as sharing all of our photos. I will post an update after each of Tom's medical appointments so I don't have to email everyone individually. Please feel free to leave a comment with any ideas, suggestions or questions. Welcome to our website! Enjoy!

Welcome!!

Welcome to our little spot on the web. We will share photos and news about our family here, so come back often!

~ The Neibauers