After recent events, it’s nice to be able to report some good news.
Cathy and I took Maria to a folk/bluegrass festival. Maria liked the music, clearly perking up when each song would start. She was doing some good standing and even was trying to clap along with the music! However the best part was the petting zoo. They had some goats, donkeys and llamas. Maria of course loved the animals and she petted them. Actually petted them. She didn’t pull their fur or bite or anything. She just petted them very carefully. Cathy got it on video and we hope to post that soon. Maria even tried to hug one of the donkeys; very cute.
Maria’s seizures are less frequent, though not gone, with the higher does of medication. We are also doing the asthma inhaler and nose spray which Maria just hates so that’s proving to be interesting. We won’t start the other two medicines (the muscle relaxant and the one for her hearing) until her seizures are under control. We’ll probably start the muscle one first, wait until everything is stable for a couple of weeks, then start the other one. I haven’t found much on using amantadine with hearing but I finally found some papers about its effect on sensory processing disorders. They were way over my head but basically it might help with all of her sensory processing, not just her hearing. That would be very exciting!
So we are hoping things will be a bit less dramatic over the next few weeks, and maybe even improve under the new medication.
I finally got up some of Maria’s pictures for Jun-Oct 2008 and Nov-Dec 2008. However it also reminded me how much I hate the gallery software I’m using so I really need to find another one before posting more.