Alex is now 7 months old. He continues to be cared for at home with his parents and nurses. He has become quite the little pork-chop, weighing in at 19 lbs... despite being on a diet since December!!

Alex has remained fairly healthy this winter, with only a minor upper respiratory infection to complain of. The majority of his issues continue to be neurological...he has seizures which are partially controlled with medication, he has vision and hearing loss due to his brain being unable to interpret what his eyes and ears take in, he is non-verbal/non-communicative, continues to be feeding tube fed as he canít swallow or suck, and still has no movement in his legs.

However, he is working very hard in his therapy session. In physical therapy, he is working on lifting and controlling his head, rolling over, and propping up on his arms. In occupational therapy, he is experiencing all sorts of textures and objects with the goal of eventually actively playing with these things. In vision therapy he is working on increasing his alertness and response to light and dark, movement, and shapes. And with a hearing teacher, we are trying to establish a system of physical cues (aka signs that he can feel) to represent different things in his environment with the goal of finding a way for us to communicate.

All in all, a very busy life for such a little boy!!

Thanks to all for checking in on him...we'll keep you posted!

Amy, Steve, and Alex Jo

The Jo family is so proud to announce the arrival home of their beautiful son Alexander Youn Jo.

After 2 long months in the intensive care nursery at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Alex has finally joined his loving family at home. He is resting comfortably in the care of his parents and a night duty nurse, Harvey.

We are not sure how much you all know about our hectic and scary summer, so we'll start at the beginning...

Alex was born on July 19th at Abington Memorial Hospital. Unfortunately the umbilical cord was tightly wrapped around his neck and by the time of his birth he was unable to breath and had no heart beat. The neonatology staff spent 15 minutes reviving him, but when his heart started beating again, he was still unable to breath on his own and had started having seizures (an early sign on brain damage). Four hours after his birth it was decided that he would be transferred to Jefferson and enrolled in a Brain Cooling study designed to reduce brain swelling and prevent further damage.

Alex spent over 2 months in the hospital recovering from his birth injury and receiving various treatments. The bad news is that his brain injury is severe. He is unable to suck or swallow and is therefore fed via a feeding tube, his legs are very tight (spastic) and he can not move them, and at this point is seems that he is unable to hear or see. The good news is that Alex is very comfortable, he breathes well without any support, he has started to make some noises and try to roll over, he loves to be held, touched and cuddled and is deeply loved by family, friends, nurses, doctors, and therapists.

We wanted to take this time to first update everyone on our super-babe, but also to thank everyone for their extraordinary kindness. The support, prayers, and thoughts have made us so aware of what wonderful friends we have. It has been so comforting to us to know that we have such an amazing network from which to draw strength.

And finally, we wanted to let you all know that we welcome calls or visits anytime. We are definitely feeling ready for some company and we know Alex loves the attention. So please stop by or call if you get a chance.

Thanks again,

Steven, Amy, and Alex Jo

 Contact:

stevej@gfsnet.org

amywjo@hotmail.com