Emmett’s been having a lot of back pain recently. He’s been to the doctor and it appeared to be muscular in nature so he was referred to physical therapy. The appointment was scheduled but we had a month or so to wait and it felt like forever.

Yesterday, Emmett had his evaluation and they believe it’s muscular as well. He did great and has exercises to do each day. I’ll also now be taking him to PT every Friday morning at 7am through July. I’m not super excited about that but we do what we must and he definitely needs the help.

Part of the problem is that Emmett has grown so rapidly recently. He went from this tiny kid who hadn’t grown forever to this giant teenager, seemingly overnight. He’s now taller than both his brothers and his body isn’t used to carrying that load.

Another factor as well is that he’s dealing with so many sensory challenges that it’s tough to know what’s what. His interpretation of pain is different. He was always the kid that could run right into a wall at full speed, literally bounce off, and move on like nothing happened. At the same time he struggled with things like socks and shirts because the contact with his skin was painful at times. Don’t even get me started on how he reacted to things like paper-cuts. He could slam his fingers in the door and be fine but a paper-cut was the end of the world. It’s definitely been tough for him in the area of his life.

It’s really hard for me to gauge what’s going on when he’s in pain. Sometimes pain means there’s something very wrong that requires intervention and other times it doesn’t.

Anyway, as he gets older, he’s doing a much better job of expressing himself, and I’m so grateful for that. Hopefully, the next few months will help him to strengthen and work through whatever is going on.

I hate seeing any of my kids in pain and it’s very frustrating not being able to immediately take that pain away. I do feel very good about where he’s getting therapy at. Akron Children’s Hospital is so amazing and they’ve always been there for us over the years. I definitely feel that he’s in the right place and will find relief soon.