Dr Leber

Unfortunately, October 17 came around and Bella still had not taken a step on her own.  So, we went to see Dr Leber.  Fortunately, he visits Flint on Mondays, so we didn't have to travel to Ann Arbor to see him.  He and his nurse were very friendly.  Bella, being afraid of doctors, didn't like being there, but he handled it well.  At this time, Bella was still crawling and pulling herself up to stand, just not walking.  He did a full assessment and concluded that there was nothing neurologically wrong with her.  He wanted to do a couple of blood tests to see if there were issues with her muscles.  He said that he didn't see any reason for her to be seen by him again until she was 2, because he saw nothing wrong with her.  If the tests came back with abnormal results we would be contacted.  So, we went across the hall and had her blood drawn, which was a very interesting experience.  It only took 4 of us to accomplish the blood draw, but they got what they needed. 

Of course, we wanted to know the results right away, so we called the office when we hadn't heard anything in a week.  We were told that if the results were normal that we would get a letter in the mail stating that, and only if the tests were abnormal would we get a call from the doctor.  Well, we finally received a letter from Dr Leber with the results.  He did a CPK test, which was normal and an aldolase test, which came back slightly elevated.  He emailed the results to Dr Dowling to ask his opinion because the one level was high.  Dr Dowling concluded that without seeing Bella and just going off of the test results and Dr Leber's evaluation that she might have Benign Hypotonia.  Dr Dowling also told Dr Leber that he didn't think he needed to see her until she was two, if she still wasn't walking.

Dr Leber referred us to a progam called Early On.  It is a government funded program through the local ISD.  He said that they could start physical therapy with Bella and that should help strengthen her enough to start walking. What we didn't realize was the amount of time it would take for the Early On Program to actually evaluate Bella and have the physical therapy start.