Welcome to the World of ABR - Montreal, Fall 2008

Welcome to ABR, come enter our world, forget what you're heard from your typical therapists, doctors, and medical world. Come listen about ABR, we offer no miracles, we offer a lot of hours of work, we offer insight on the anatomy of your child and his failing structure, but what we tell you are things that are fixable that will help your child IF the techniques are done correctly and for the prescribed amount of time.

We are still in Montreal on our 5th day of training. We have had two evaluations, one with Gavin who basically gets you ready and how to be prepared for meeting with Leonid (the founder of ABR). We have learned the 3 basic exercises we will be doing on Daniel. We have trained and practiced on each other, and on the trainer to assure we aren't doing them incorrectly, that we are applying the correct pressure in the correct spot when needed.

Our evaluation was the first one of the day with Leonid, and took approximately 2 hours. The whole process was video taped and also photos were taken (over 800 photos of Daniel's body). I am not exaggerating when I say over 800, it really is. They keep these in Daniel's files and when we come back next to meet with Leonid (6 months) we will see how Daniel measures up to those photos. He explained to us what he sees wrong with Daniel. More than I expected to tell you the truth, and for the first time I wasn't really upset by it. Reason being, they told us, we are telling you things that are wrong with your child's structure, but they are all things that can be fixed without operations, without drugs, without botox. So what is wrong with Daniel can be fixed. No let me correct that so people don't think that I think we can fix Daniel's brain. No we cannot fix the damage that is done to Daniel's brain, but we can fix the damage that the brain has done to Daniel's structure. His structure is collapsing. I know this is hard to understand, and I will be able to explain it more when we get all the videos, and I can show you what I mean. Basically Daniel has a shortened neck, his clavicle, his shoulder blades more as a whole when you move his arm,and they shouldn't. when Daniel is on his back and you lift his leg, his other leg lifts also, he does not separate the two. If you flip Daniel by his arm his whole body follows in a block, everything moves together. When Daniel is placed on his stomach he is incapacitated, his chest compresses under the weight of his body. These are just a few of the things that were said.
Basically, what it comes down to is we must fix the structure before we can expect it to run and move correctly. So like I said in a previous post, we cannot possibly expect Daniel to walk or move his arms correctly, or to sit up when his structure is poor. First we must fix the structure and then the brain will hopefully fix the rest.

I know sounds like a bunch of babbling and hogwash.....but this is what we are doing, and I can almost guarantee you, that we will see differences in Daniel within the next year. The evaluation was not all negative, Leonid did say that Daniel has an excellent frame, and that his skin is good, there are some good things with him (which we already knew). His temperament is going to help us a great deal, he is a trooper and will let us do these exercises (I think he knows we are trying to help him.) I am excited to get started, and can't wait to get home and start logging hours.

Tomorrow is our last day of training. We will review for the last week, ask any questions that we might have, and we will all leave with a new sense of hope. We will do the three exercises that we learned (anterior thorax, anterior neck & jaw/larynx).

Socially, it has been very cool to meet some of the parents of the blogs that I have been following. We have talked as a group or just individually and I have learned allot from them, listening to the things that they are tried, or what they have learned about different things out there. I will be researching more things when I get home. I am positive I will continue to enjoy watching and reading their blogs to see how well their children are doing with the ABR.

I am excited tomorrow is the last day and I can start to get Daniel back on his regular schedule. I can tell you next Monday is going to be hell getting him up for school!! Here are some random photos from the week.

Marcela & Nathan after dessert!!
Richard (trainer from Argentina) doing exercise on Daniel

Todd and Tyse

Erin & Fletcher (Jennifer in the background)

Daddy doing the exercise on Daniel's thorax.