Lansdowne Client Ambassadors for the 2024 Heroes Walk and Roll
This is their Lansdowne story.
Jack was born on November 30th, 2015. He was a bit small at 6lb 6oz, but seemed to be a completely healthy baby, which was a relief after his sister, Emma had been born with cytomegalovirus CMV, an infection, and spent some time in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit). Jack was a little slow on his milestones out of the gate, he wasn’t holding his head up by the time he should be, and just didn’t seem to have the muscle tone and development a child his age should.
The first major signs that something was different with Jack was when it came to solid food. He managed pureed food without a problem, but anything solid he would chew, and then instead of swallowing, spit right out. This, combined with his lack of muscle tone started to raise some alarms.
Enter Lansdowne Children’s Centre. Jack, now 10 months old, was able to get in relatively quickly with the feeding and swallowing Occupational Therapy (OT) team for some intensive therapy. The impact was immediate. Not long after beginning his therapy Jack showed signs of starting to swallow his solid food. Jack continued this intensive therapy until he reached the point of swallowing on his own without any type of assistance.
By this point, Jack was showing no signs of progressing towards crawling, and was having trouble sitting without assistance.
Jack started physiotherapy (PT )at Lansdowne, while continuing with OT work. While the many therapies seemed daunting, having a HITS coordinator (Holistic Integrated Teams) who oversaw the communication helped to give an understanding of the needs and goals for each of the therapies.
Jack was diagnosed before his second birthday with Williams Syndrome, a genetic disorder wherein a small part of the seventh chromosome is missing.
This was devastating news that was a lot for the family to digest. Lansdowne, and Jacks team, were so caring, compassionate, and understanding. Lansdowne provided resources to help understand the diagnosis, and helped to put a plan in place for Jack to hit his milestones.
Jack walked at 22 months old, and started talking shortly thereafter, thanks to the efforts of PT, OT and Speech Therapists.
When Jack was starting Kindergarten, Lansdowne helped with school meetings, an All About Me profile, and really helping the school to understand Jack’s needs. The input and comfort Lansdowne provided during this transition made the whole process seamless. Lansdowne knew all of the questions to ask, all of the important information the school needed to help Jacks transition to school be a success.
Jack, now 8 years old, is in a fully integrated class at school and is entering grade four. He is beginning reading and writing, and has started to show understanding of some basic math concepts. In short, Jack is thriving. And a huge part of that is thanks to the early intervention from Lansdowne Children’s Centre.