The past few months

I decided that I would add one more post this morning so I wouldn't be overwhelmed tonight with all that I need to post. Part of the reason that it has been difficult for me to keep up with Annika's blog is that she has had a rough past few months. It all started probably back in late February when she had her first seizure at school. The staff was great and they handled it very well. So that really didn't seem like a "big" deal-we increased the medication and went on with life. In March, she was supposed to go in and get her quarterly Botox injections and that appointment was postponed due to conflict with the doctor's schedule. So it was almost mid-April by the time we got her in to do the Botox. Lisa went with us and basically told the doctor that if he was going to serial cast her this time she was going to take her and run. He thought this was pretty good and decided to inject her with Botox in two areas. Well, let's just say that Lisa changed her mind after watching Annika go through the procedure. Thankfully, Annika does not remember anything about the injections due to the sedation she is given before the procedure. It is hard for those there to watch or to participate in but the benefit of it outweighs the guilt of putting your child through this. That being said, we believe that we will do serial casting in one of the areas over the botox injection just to see if we get better results or not. Well, shortly after the botox Annika had two grand mal seizures at school. Two days in a row (1 on one day and then 1 on the next). This whole activity sent her into a tailspin. Now Annika was tired, lost skills, and just basically was not Annika for several weeks. We have spent the past 2 months doing additional testing (including a 24 hour EEG), changing up medications, and just praying that Annika would gain back her skills and just become the "Annika" we knew. I think we are finally getting there. We had to add an additional seizure medication to her routine and this is not something that Annika is very thrilled about. Taking 5 different medications every day is not the desire of anyone!!! I just wish that we could "open" up her brain and just find what is going on in there and just fix it. Unfortunately, that is not a possibility so we play this "game" of waiting and then trial and error with different medications. Her neurologist thinks that we have figured out what to do but he did tell me that if it didn't help that I could call him and basically tell him that he had no idea what he is doing. It is great when you have a doctor who can show that he is human and he is not "always" right. Unfortunately or fortunately (however you want to take it), it doesn't look like I get to tell him this now. She is really starting to come out of her "fog". Or at least the best we can tell since where you would notice it the most is at school and the frustration she would have when it just took her so long to process the work or she couldn't remember things that she knew previously. That being said we are still working with her at home on "school" work and we are seeing some good changes. The biggest one is that she even wants to try to do her "table" work. She is so close to learning how to read that I would be so proud of her if she really learned how to read this summer. This may be a very "high" goal but if anyone can do it, it would be Annika.