Angels in Action – Eddyto’s Story

Eddyto was born a healthy baby at 37 weeks. He has a sister aged 4 and lives in Guatemala, Latin America. Eddyto was diagnosed with Angelman Syndrome, del +, Class II, at 11 months of age.

We have been working hard ever since with nutritional therapy, supplements and the NACD program. Eddyto has come a long way and we are doing everything we can to support him to achieve his maximum potential in health and development.

In addition to having Angelman Syndrome, Eddyto took another hard blow at 7 months of age. His third set of influenza, DTP and hepatitis B vaccines was too much for his body to handle and he lost previously acquired skills, decreased eye contact, stopped babbling, had a sudden onset of hypotonia, which had not previously existed and drifted off into his own world. We quickly implemented nutritional therapy and supplements and we have been able to get him back on track and he now loves to smile at everyone again. Lesson learned. No more vaccines!

But today, I want to tell you the story of how Eddyto is evolving in his gross motor skills. He started crawling military style before his first birthday and kept that technique for 8 months.

We thought he would never crawl four point but when we went to Austria to visit my mother’s family we spent a lot of time in the garden and Eddyto realized that dragging his body on the grass did not work so he changed his approach and voila, he started to four point crawl!

We had not trained four point crawl in therapy since we follow the NACD approach whereby the body needs to develop gradually in his own pace and therefore you do not push the next developmental step but prepare everything needed so the brain and body get there on their own. It was amazing when he started to four point crawl it was so natural, as if he had been doing it forever. This is the beauty of the body, once everything is ready, things run smoothly.

Now, Eddyto is working on his walking skills by cruising along furniture and pulling himself up on anything he can get a hold of. He does very well; he reaches back and forth between the sofa and coffee table and balances his body preparing himself for independent standing. Every once in a while he will let go for a second and test his balance realizing that he still needs to hold on to something for now. We received a wonderful Rifton walker by another angel family and had started to use it, but we decided to hold off some time till Eddyto is ready to walk.

We work hard on Eddyto’s balance and do 5 to 6 hours of therapy daily. Feel free to check out Eddyto’s video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YFqDIDLq20

Last but not least I would like you to remember – Never put any limitations on your Angel.

By Isabel Orellano de Chang