So last week was checkup week in the house, with me having two visits to St. Mike’s and Jon having a quick consultation with an oral surgeon in Whitby (when and if he does the tooth removals, he’ll do them at Sick Kids, but he likes to consult in his own office).

I’ll deal with Jon’s visit first, since it’s the easy one.

Fact: Jon’s progress on his baby teeth—or if your mail-order DDS diploma arrived today, deciduous teeth—is very slow. This is not a panic to us, as one of our nieces has this issue too, and everything is fine, just slower.

The orthodontist, Dr. Dagys, would like to remove Jon’s baby eye teeth (one per quadrant = 4) to give his front teeth a little room to spread out for a year or so, and gradually she’ll start her equipment magic.

The oral surgeon, Dr. Nish, thinks more removals are coming in the future, and that the eye teeth don’t buy too much more room. The removal of four teeth alone will require Jon to be anesthetized, and although anesthesia is relatively safe, there is always risk. Since he believes that Dr. Dagys is going to have him remove more teeth in the future, he feels that he should remove three teeth per quadrant (=12) in one fell swoop and Dr. Dagys can fit Jon with temporary dentures to fill the immense chewing surface gap. Mind you, Dr. Nish is a bit concerned by Jon’s late schedule, and admits that there’s a risk of Jon’s permanent teeth never emerging, despite their existence on x-rays.

Dr. Dagys has not told us about further removals, and when you combine that with the low, but real, risk of lack of the emergence of the permanent teeth, we think 12 at a time is a tad on the extreme side.

So we’re gonna let the two docs debate this one, and come back to us with a proposal that we can discuss. The nice thing is that both doctors are giving us a lot of the raw facts and their concerns, so we’ll be able to examine the new-and-improved proposed solution carefully.

Jon’s new walker has finally shown up. The delay wasn’t a supply issue, but rather a provincial co-funding issue, but I’ll rant about that another time.

It’s quite something to see Jon trying to surmount 11 years of not having to consider how to steer your body with your legs. Nothing in Jon’s experience has prepared him for a task like a U-turn, which is markedly different from anything he’s done before. On a therapeutic trike or wheelchair, it doesn’t require anything new from your legs: either they just sit there or they peddle, right? But a U-turn in a walker requires your legs to steer, perhaps cross-step, shifting weight while still keeping balance. Your brain has to make choices, and learn from mistakes. Muscles develop, and your strategies change.

This is the kind of thing you typically start to learn at 10 months or so, like our young buddy Rowan. Your butt is a full 12 inches from the ground, heavily padded by flesh and diaper and mistakes don’t cost much. And obviously, your legs grow strong as you wander more. It all fits together in a developmental ballet.

This is why many of Jon’s problems are referred to as “developmental delay”. Much of what he can’t or doesn’t do may be because of a lack of opportunity, due to low vision or other physical impediments that don’t allow him to take advantage of a relevant situation.

We’ll see how it goes. Yesterday evening, he proudly stood at the outdoor glass table and then reached forward to crank open the table umbrella. He’d never had that opportunity before. Developmental blocks shift and build. We’ll see how it will affect his footwork, his leg muscles, his hips, his posture…and his inquisitiveness…as we go.