Like many parents I hoped to find some treatment that would help Audra get better! Along with traditional OT, PT and Infant Development class I began to research alternative treatments.

My husbands family was big on Chiropractic Care, he had an aunt who was a Chiropractor and so one of the treatments we pursued was naturally this alternative. (Actually, now that I think of it, it didn't make much sense. You can't fix someones brain by cracking thier spine or neck) But desparate times sometimes leave you reaching for the stars.

I also found the program called Patterning, the premises being that you could retrain parts of the brain to take over for the damaged parts by repetitive movement and an intense program. The program we choose was not the most demanding program, but still we practiced it 5 days a week. We had 4 to 5 volunteers from church who helped us with the program. We did it for many years, although we saw little progress, the range of motion exercise's were good even if they only served to keep Audra stretched out.

Of course there were opponents, the most adamant was Audra's then OT from her program. "What, she said do you hope to gain from this?" I thought about it for a while, "Well when Audra is older, I will know that I did all I could to help her" "If I didn't try I would always wonder, if only I had"

Of course now I know that at this point there isn't much that can "fix" a child's brain injury. My advice for parents thinking of alternative treatments, is do your research! Know everything about the causes of your child's disability, don't do something invasive or that doesn't make much sense (and cost you a pretty penny).

Don't spend your child's life trying to "fix" her!

I am reminded of a man I once knew, he had cerebral palsy and had spent his youth being dragged from one healer to another. He had a terrible relationship with his parents and was bitter that they were always trying to "fix him" instead of just loving him.

I made it a point to just love Audra, fixing her wasn't an option, she was perfect the way she was!