Joshua is 12 years old now and has been swimming on the Loveland Swim Club since he was three years old. He has been regularly attending practice since fourth grade. However, middle school has been a huge change for him. In elementary school, he was in one classroom and pulled out for an hour a day for extra help in math, reading and writing. However, now he has to organize his books, keep his locker organized, attend six classes (with two classes switching off each day,) and make sure he has his homework. This is hard for any sixth grader, but it is especially challenging for Joshua, who still has some difficulty remembering more than three steps.
We have never had an issue with Joshua going to swim practice three times a week, for an hour. He enjoys swimming and is really adept. However, this year he has been balking. At the beginning of the year, he had some difficulty with his ventriculo-cysto-peritoneal shunt. It was leaking around the temporal site. When we went to see the neurosurgeon, we had good news and bad news. The good news was, the problem resolved itself without any surgical intervention. The bad news was that sometime between his last shunt surgery when he was four, and now, he had developed a Type 1 Chiari Malformation. Obviously, around that time, swimming was the first thing to cut down and he only went two days a week. However, we have been trying since that time to build up to three days a week again. It seems like some weeks we only go once because Joshua is so overwhelmed and tired when he gets home from school.
Most parents would advise me to pull Joshua out of swimming. But, I believe that the reason Joshua has done so well over the years is that I continually push him past his comfort zone. Most people who meet Joshua, have no idea that there is any medical issues or delays. He has gone from significant special education intervention in the public school to being completely integrated with the regular curriculum, performing at age level or above in all subjects but writing.
I was so proud of Joshua in January when he tried to go out for wrestling (with the neurologist and neurosurgeons permission, of course.) The practices were too intense for him, however, and he ended up with an increase in seizures. It was his decision to drop out after about a month. This brings me back to the question of swimming. He has had a hard time getting back into the mode of swimming. He took a break while wrestling, but I put him back in after he dropped out. I did this for two reasons. The first reason is that it is wonderful exercise for him. Second, it really helps him with cross coordination.
My dilemma is whether I should pull him out of swimming for the rest of the school year and let him just focus on school, or whether I should have him go two times a week. I can see the argument for both. It has been a difficult year for him, but also rewarding. His teachers can't say enough about how hard he works and how impressed they are that he never asks to get out of work, comes in over his lunch hour to finish projects and also attends after school tutoring sessions. Given this extra effort, he probably needs to just rest after school. However, I really believe that physical exercise in and of itself is a wonderful reliever of stress and it is a good habit to develop when you are young.
I will continue to puzzle over this quandary and write of my final decision in April. What to do, what to do...
For information on arachnoid cysts: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/arachnoid_cysts/arachnoid_cysts.htm
For information on Chiari Malformations: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/chiari/chiari.htm
For information on Seizure Disorders: http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/about/types/
No comments:
Post a Comment