Kenley's Visit With ECI

As some of you may know, Kenley was diagnosed with Torticollis at her 1 month checkup. All it means is that the muscles in her neck are tight and her head is tilted from being in that position in utero. Kenley has always held her head tilted to the left and although it has gotten a lot better, she still prefers to hold it slightly tilted and rotate (or look) to the right. At the 1 month checkup, her pediatrician just said to keep and eye on it.
At the 6 month checkup a new pediatrician noticed her head tilt and also commented that she has some facial asymmetry. He mentioned that the right side of her face is fuller than the left. Her right cheek is fuller, her right eye is bigger, and her right ear sticks out more than her left. I had noticed it, but thought that was just how God made her. He said that she would probably be fine, but suggested that I call Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) if I was concerned. Well, after that checkup I began to worry that her inability to roll over was somehow linked to the Torticollis. I also started looking at all of the pictures that I had taken of her since birth and began to notice just how tilted her head was and also noticed the growing asymmetry in her face in later pictures. I decided to call ECI several weeks ago to ease my mind. We set up an appointment for them to come evaluate her this morning.
I have been looking quite forward to the visit from ECI. Until Kenley rolled over last Thursday, I was becoming more worried that the Torticollis was affecting her development. So I was ecstatic to see her not just roll over once, but continue to do it several times last week. It still just makes my heart smile to see her roll over.
ECI sent three people out to evaluate Kenley this morning...the ECI coordinator, an RN, and a physical therapist. The RN evaluated vision, hearing and other developmental skills for Kenley. Then the physical therapist took some time to play with her and take a look at her neck. After 1 1/2 hours of constant stimulation and exercises we finally had the results. The short version is that Kenley is mostly average or above average in most areas of development. If you want the details they are below:
Adaptive (or ablility to use to tools to get something or "plan"): functional age 8 months
Cognitive (or ability to understand cause and effect): functional age 9 months
Fine motor skills: functional age 7 months
Gross motor skills: functional age 7 months
Expressive language (actual "talking"): functional age 7 months
Receptive language (body language): functional age 7 months
Personal/Social: functional age 9 months
All this means is that for the most part Kenley is developing at or ahead of schedule. The only area that she is lacking in is the rolling over department. She is tracking as a 6 month old there. Because of this and the muscles in her neck being tight, the pediatrician qualified her for physical therapy from ECI. So Kenley will have physical therapy for her Torticollis twice a month until the PT feels that she can cut down to once a month and then do away with it completely.
I asked them if the facial asymmetry would be able to be corrected. They explained that the muscle and tissue development in the face was probably permanent, but that the physical therapy would prevent it from getting worse. I was a little sad at first, but as the day has gone on here are my thoughts: Kenley's right cheek is bigger than her left one, but her cheeks are so soft and kissable, thank you God. Her right eye is bigger than her left one, but she can see this beautiful world out of both eyes, thank you God. Kenley's right ear sticks out further than her left one, but she can hear her daddy sing to her, me tell her I love her, and her sister laugh out of both ears, thank you God. God has given us this beautiful healthy little girl and we are so thankful that she is here with us. She is absolutely beautiful with a tender and sweet personality. She is perfect to us.