our little victor: September 2013

WOW!!

This is what 1/2 way looks like!! Big thanks to friends and family near and far for being a part of our teddy bear and toy drive!

When I got to the Whitt house on Thursday night, Mimi handed me more bags of toys. Her friend Sue found some great stuffed animals from the Kohl's Cares collection. (this is in no way an advertisement for Kohls). And I had gotten a shipment of books from another of her friends, Caryl, via Amazon as well. Plus, Mimi had picked up a few more on top of what she and Aunt Ashley had already contributed (TONS!!).

Ollie and I came home from a weekend at Mimi's to a box full of toys from our neighbors! Even though we could not attend the block party, they went out of their way to help us out. THANK YOU!

As I was finishing up this post, Taylor came home from a weekend in Louisville with our amazing friends and mentors and our total is now 130! (Thanks Antonio and Nathalie!)

We will be taking the toys to Mott on October 22nd, the day of Ollie's follow-up MRI. Please reach out if you are looking for a way to get items here, we have shipping addresses and alternate drop off spots as well. We can even do some pick ups where possible!

Please also take a minute to like www.facebook.com/OllieWinning

Thank you family and friends.
We love you all!

Taylor, Katie and Ollie

PHEW! It has been a busy summer...mostly wonderful!

Ollie has finally gotten into a little routine with speech "class". His therapist comes to our home one day a week to work with him. Taylor usually supervises, but I got to watch a bit a few weeks ago. It was so cute to see Ollie sit indian style (or criss cross or pretzel or whatever is PC now) in front of Miss Cindy and listen so well. He really interacts nicely with her.

Ollie's vocabulary is constantly expanding and he often groups 2 or more sentences together. However, you (who EVER you are) would not likely understand more than a few words. We are all working to help Ollie remember to annunciate the start and end of his words and particularly C's and P's. Taylor has been working on getting a schedule set up with UofM's outpatient clinic so that Ollie can get the first appointment of the day to reduce risk of infection.

Recently, Oliver's favorite past-time has been watching TV. NEVER thought I would EVER say that about a child of mine, but he is pretty much under house-arrest...options are limited. Usually Taylor can get Ollie outside for 2-3 hours a day...playing basketball, golf, baseball, taking walks or playing in the sand. But, Ollie always seems to wrangle a few episodes of Umizoomi. His favorite. Our family's least favorite. However, each of us will begrudgingly admit that Ollie has learned so many things! Shapes, numbers, basic math and patterns. AND, the theme song. TOO FUNNY to watch him shake his bum and sing/dance to the tune.

We did have one small set-back this summer. In August, we noticed a few symptoms try to make a reappearance. At the suggestion of his specialist, Dr P, we moved up his IVIG by a week and held his steroid dose for an extra two weeks before we moved to the next step in the taper process. As it turns out, Oliver's body was probably fighting germs (I ended up with strep throat, ear and sinus infections- diagnosed a week later). As we already knew, any increase in immune system activity could bring about symptoms. Thankfully, IVIG and lots of prayers for protection led Ollie to avoid any relapse that might have been looming. He is strong and healthy. Thank you God!

We closed out the summer with the start to Oliver's Teddy Bear Drive for OMS Awareness. Ollie's goal (well, our goal) is to collect 250 toys in Ollie's honor to donate to C.S. Mott Children's Hospital. We are excited to give back to the hosptial that helped make Oliver's inpatient stay as comfortable as possible and even more excited to help raise awareness for OMS. Early diagnosis improves the outcome for those impacted beyond measure. Some kids go months or years w/o diagnosis. Ollie went 4 days (which, by the way, felt like forever). The sooner OMS is treated and moved into remission, the less chance of chronic relapse and brain damage. Ollie is a blessed little man!

If you would like to donate to Ollie's Teddy Bear Drive, the link is on the right hand side of the page. Donations can also be made on the national OMS Teddy Bear Drive page: http://www.razoo.com/story/5th-Annual-Oms-Teddy-Bear-Drive?referral_code=share. Please let us know if you donate so we can personally and publicly thank you!

As of 9/25/13 we have collected 108 toys and $100 towards our goal. THANK YOU!!

You can also visit Oliver's new facebook page: www.facebook.com/OllieWinning

This will be our primary posting place.

As Ollie says, "see u toon!"