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The Epic Journey of Sophie Dove - One little girl who is determined to beat the odds!

  • Almost 2yrs old!

      16 September 2018
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    Hi Everyone,

    I have been intending to do an update for soooo long! So sorry for the wait but none the less here it is.

    Over the last 6 months Sophie has been doing well and making steady progress, our Physio and Speech and Language Therapist are always impressed with how clever, determined and motivated she is.

    Sophie has been keeping us busy with her enthusiasm to move and learn, we have something on every morning. She has been going to movement therapy, sensory playgroup, swimming, horse riding and has various other appointments with the Physio, Speech and language therapist and the Chiropractor.

    We have noticed that Sophie loves playing with other kids and learns quickly from watching them. So we have been making an effort to make sure she gets more opportunities to be around other kids. She has also been surprising us with how much she knows and understands. Because it is difficult for her to move and speak it’s not always easy for her to show us what she knows. It turns out her understanding is on par with what you would expect of a 2yr old.

    Sophie is still working on crawling and independent sitting, her real passion though is standing and walking. With help she likes to push into standing and walk, however she does tend to walk on her toes a bit and lacks the balance and strength to do these things on her own. So we are focusing on her learning all the things that come prior to being able to stand and walk.

    There is strong research showing that independent movement of any kind has a massive impact on brain development. So we are going to play with Sophie using a walker for short periods and have applied for an adapted electric car from Go Baby Go for her to drive around in.

    I am currently organising a trial for the Mollii Suit here in NZ, it’s a suit that uses electrical stimulation to reduce muscle spasticity. The hope is that by reducing her muscle spasticity it can give her an opportunity to move more normally and re-wire her brain. I’m trying to bring more of the therapies that look promising over here to NZ to save on travel costs and so other kids with challenges like Sophie can benefit also.

    I could write about Sophie and various therapies all day long but I will stop here.

    Thanks again to everyone who is supporting us on this journey. I couldn’t imagine how much harder this would be without the support and financial help to access the therapies that are helping Sophie have the best chance of reaching her full potential.

    So thank you, thank you and thank you!

    Love from

    Michaela, Jarrath and Sophie xo

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  • Melbourne trip

      2 April 2018
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    Wow! We have been blown away by the amazing support we have received since launching Sophie’s givealittle page! Thank you doesn’t really feel adequate but we feel somewhat lost for words when it comes to fully expressing our gratitude and how much everyone’s support means to us. However thank you is the best we can come up with right now.

    Thank you to everyone so far that has donated through the page and thank you to the family members that have donated outside of the page. Also Thank you to Shirley and Claire who so kindly welcomed us into their home in Melbourne while Sophie did 2 weeks of intensive movement therapy.

    On March the 10th we headed over to Melbourne for 2 weeks. Sophie had been selected to be a case study patient for the Practitioners training on Pediatric Neurology. Sophie also did 2 weeks of intensive movement therapy while we were there.

    The conclusion from the Neurological assessment Sophie had done was very positive and the Doctors were very impressed with the progress she has made so far. The Doctor felt that Sophie is definitely heading in the right direction and that with the right help and a lot of hard work she will get crawling, sitting and eventually walking!

    The Doctor will be providing ongoing support to Sophie’s Specialist here in NZ to help her progress to her next developmental milestones.

    Sophie then did 10 days of movement therapy which was 1 hour twice a day. Overall she handled it very well and really enjoyed it. Over the two weeks we noticed many improvements the biggest improvements were with her head and trunk control.

    She also started to very calmly start to wiggle on her tummy on the floor and almost crawl. Normally she gets frustrated very quickly and finds it hard to have the patients with learning to crawl as the harder she tries the more rigid her muscles go. So this was a big change for her, as to get anywhere she has to learn to do it in a relaxed manor or she just gets stuck.

    Jarrath and I also learnt so much and have a lot of exercises to add to Sophie's home programme. So we all have a lot of “digesting” to do after 2 weeks of intense learning but we are looking forward to seeing how it helps Sophie over the next few weeks and months.

    For now Sophie is back to her daily therapies here in Auckland until our next therapeutic adventure. We are looking forward to helping and watching our beautiful little girl grow and learn in this next stage of her development and most importantly enjoying, helping and loving each other on this epic journey.

    Much love and appreciation to all our supporters!

    Jarrath, Michaela and Sophie xo

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