Savannah Halliday

Synopsis                                                                                                     

Savannah is special needs child that has been diagnosed by a variety of specialists as being Autistic, PDD-NOS, Echolalic, Apraxic, and Hypotonic. She was also diagnosed by one neurologist as possibly having mild cerebral palsy. 

History

• Savannah weighed 1 pound 0 ounces at birth. Her birth weight dropped to less than one pound within 24 hours. She was immediately admitted to NICU where she received a variety of treatments in an effort to save her life.
• Savannah remained in NICU for two years with chronic bronchopulmonary dysplasia. She underwent 7 different surgeries including a full Nissen fundoplication, Tracheotomy, 2 central line placements, and the insertion of a Jejunum feeding tube. Savannah was placed on a respirator for the majority of her time in NICU. On two separate occasions Savannah was given a combination of drugs (Norcuron and Fentanyl) which put her in a coma like state. This was required to keep her lungs from fighting the respirator which caused her oxygen saturation levels to drop to fatal levels. The second administration of this treatment lasted so long that our doctors called a formal meeting to inform us that there was nothing left to be done for Savannah and that we needed to prepare for the loss of our child.
• Just before her second birthday, Savannah was released from the hospital.
• Savannah as subsequently had a tonsillectomy-adenoidectomy and has had reconstructive surgery to close her tracheotomy.

Education - Therapy

Savannah is enrolled in the MO-MI LD class at Alpharetta Elementary School where she receives physical, occupational and speech therapy. She also receives additional private therapy for speech, PT and OT four days a week. Savannah is currently taking Prozac, and other drugs related to her asthma. We also administer homeopathic therapies including fish oils as part of her diet, music therapy, flash cards and more. In short, Savannah is worked with in some form several times a day, every day of her life.

Hyperbaric Therapy

Savannah’s therapy was showing some signs of progress, though significant changes in her behavior, muscle tone, and interaction with her environment were few and far between. In short, she seemed to have stalled in her development.

We introduced Hyperbaric Therapy into Savannah’s weekly care regimen in early December 2005 and at this point she’s had roughly 25 sessions. In just a few short months Savannah has become much more vocal. She talks almost constantly now and when she’s not talking, she’s singing. When she watches movies she mimic’s the dialogue of the characters and sings along with the songs. 

Savannah used to avoid making eye contact unless directed; now she will voluntarily make eye contact and initiate conversation, usually because she’s asking for something. She’s even shown us lately that she has a sense of humor, insisting one day that she was a bumble bee. Saying, “I’m a bumble bee” and we’d say “Savannah, you’re not a bumble bee” and then she’d look at us and insist “No, I’m a bumble bee” and then started laughing at us.

We have noticed so many recent changes in her; from her vocabulary to her eating habits it would be hard to list them all. Most encouraging for us though is that we aren’t the only ones to see these changes. Letters from her teacher at school were showing that they were noticing the same things we were. Her progression at school is so noticeable in fact that they have re-evaluated her placement and are considering her for Fulton County’s Autism program called North Metro, which is a much more academically oriented setting for Savannah than where she is today.

It’s hard for us not to be too excited about hyperbaric therapy but the fact is, this is the only thing we’ve added to Savannah’s therapy/care regimen in the last few months and her recent progress is undeniable.

We can not thank everyone at The Hyperbaric Therapy Center enough for making your facilities available to children with autism and for encouraging the use of hyperbaric therapy as an alternative form of therapy for children with autism. We can only hope that more families like ours will learn about hyperbaric therapy and see the same results that we have.

Sincerely,

Morgan and Shari Halliday