Maria Rose

Last week I went to an Arizona Senate hearing on not enough therapists in Arizona. This week I’m looking for new occupational and speech therapists…

Today Maria’s home and school physical therapists met at school. The school PT still is strongly resisting changing Maria’s stander to prone. I’ve asked her to, the home PT asked her to, I told her a neurodevelopmental pediatrician suggested it, and she still doesn’t want to do it because she thinks it’s fine as is. (Lazy? stubborn? you decide)

We put Maria in the school’s Rifton walker and in the Miniwalk that Barb (home PT) had in her car. She did a LOT better in the Miniwalk (yes, that’s the one that the insurance company denied; I wrote a 6-page appeal letter in response). Home PT suggested nicely 3 or 4 times that school walker was too low for Maria. School PT said it depends on how Maria’s doing, usually it fits her fine. (lazy? stubborn? something else?).

I said the chair didn’t put her at a very good position to the table. Home PT said, hmmm looks like the arms can adjust down, and let’s put the back up straighter. School PT seemed like she didn’t even know the chair adjusted. (can you guess the adjectives I’d use now?)

As you may have guessed, our little get together was a bit awkward, a bit uncomfortable, certainly not a dialogue among colleagues trying to discuss ways to make things better for Maria. Too bad I can’t fire her… Instead, I copied the report from the neurodevelopmental pediatrician and I will highlight the part about changing the stander to prone. I even took pictures of our stander at home (same type as school stander) so she could see how it looks and where the settings are. I’m thinking of having a little chat with the teacher.

We’re looking for a new speech therapist because, as we’ve mentioned, our previous one is now meeting with other therapists instead of kids. We’re looking for a new occupational therapist (fine motor skills) because our current one is not meshing well with Maria. She constantly fights with Maria for the entire session, every session–keep your thumbs out of your mouth, don’t put the toys in your mouth (typical, expected, and encouraged behavior for a visually impaired toddler). It’s fairly obvious that Maria’s not as comfortable with her as with some others, like, say, the new horse therapist… It almost feels like torture to watch. We’ve been quite lucky with therapists, I hope our luck holds. I almost found a new OT, I know she would have said yes if she’d met Maria, but on the phone it’s easier to say no.

Yesterday Maria went to hippotherapy (physical therapy with a horse) for the first time (which is amazing considering we were waiting for her new state coordinator to send in the approval, and he actually did it with only 3 or 4 phone calls to him and his supervisor!). The therapist, Marcia, fell in love with Maria before we even got her out of the car. And before she got on the horse, the therapist said she was going to try and get Maria into a Friday 9am or 10am slot rather than the noon Wednesday slot that she’s got now. I tell you, Maria has magical powers…

Marcia worked with Maria for a little while on a padded table and asked us (Sue & I) some questions about her, then she put a waist belt and a helmet on Maria and put her on a cute little black shetland pony. I think her (his?) name is Blackberry?? They put a Boppy pillow around her front to lean on; one guy led the pony while the therapist stood on one side and a volunteer stood on Maria’s other side to keep her upright. The family has to stay outside the arena and not interact with the child (children often act up around the family). They walked around the arena several times; Maria was doing really well sitting up. I think she was on the horse for 20 minutes or so, which is a long time for the 1st time. All of a sudden, you could tell she was tired because she got a bit more floppy, so they came in.

They told me that the brains of people who don’t walk can wire themselves to learn how to walk just by riding on a horse, because the horse has the forward, up&down, and swivel movements of a person walking. After the ride, Marcia held onto Maria and Maria took about 20 steps–it was amazing!! She’s been doing really well lately with walking; she took those few steps with Andy to get baby Elmo, and she took several steps (6 in a row once) with Barb (home physical therapist) this week. I’m real excited about what this therapy could do for her; which is a good thing, since Marcia told us after we got there, that oh by the way, you have to pay $30 each time for horse rental that the insurance won’t pay. It’ll be worth it if it helps her.

The bad part is that I think the horse riding made Maria’s diaper rash worse, so I took her to the doc today and it turns out it’s a yeast infection (wish someone told me that a week or two ago!!), so he gave us a prescription for Nystatin cream, which is only 83 cents/tube. Good thing, since Maria grabbed it and squeezed out about 1/4 of it the 1st time I used it. It was actually pretty darn funny! I sure hope it helps because she looks really bad. I’d take a picture of it, but I’d be afraid of getting arrested for having kiddie porn.

Maria has been obsessed with chests lately. Everyone she comes in contact with, male or female, she pulls open their shirt at the neck and peers in, usually reaching in to feel around. It’s very cute.

We went to see a new audiologist in San Diego, finally. Maria’s last ABR (sedated hearing test) was in July 2007. At that time our local audiologist said we needed to decide within a month or two whether to get Maria a cochlear implant; she was in favor of it. I wanted a second opinion. She was supposed to send me info on a recommended expert in auditory neuropathy (but not implants). She never sent it to me, so I got another expert’s name (in both auditory neuropathy and cochlear implants) from an audiologist I met at a cochlear implant talk. I called him, sent him Maria’s test results, he said he didn’t think she had auditory neuropathy nor did he think she has severe to profound hearing loss. He gave me the name of a doc here in Phoenix. I called him and he said the test results look typical for a kid with hydrocephalus and he thought her hearing looked to be in the normal range. When we discussed seeing him since he’s local, he said he mostly sees older kids, so he recommended the SD audiologist. We were supposed to see her in January, but Maria got really sick, so we rescheduled for late February.

Fast forward to today. The new audiologist asked us a few questions to fill in the gaps she had (she’d written up a chronology before our appt), said this was a very complicated case, she hadn’t seen anything similar–you know, the usual story we hear about our little Miss Maria. She spread all the papers out on the floor during the appt to see the whole story and in conclusion, she said: I don’t think she’d benefit from a cochlear implant. I don’t think she has auditory neuropathy. I don’t think we’ll learn anything new from doing additional ABRs. I don’t think she has severe to profound hearing loss. I don’t think she’d benefit from wearing the hearing aids again. The waves (test results) look typical of a kid with hydrocephalus. The vision and motor delays and cognitive issues and overall developmental delays add to the complication of what’s really going on and why she doesn’t talk. What may have happened is the fluid-filled ventricles could have been sitting on the brain stem and/or other parts of the brain, which could have killed those brain cells and when the cells are dead, they don’t grow back, so that could have caused some damage to the auditory nerve (? I might be making that last part up).

So what does this mean? I’m not sure. She thinks Maria could be having trouble interpreting the sounds, but isn’t that auditory neuropathy? What is a “typical wave for someone with hydrocephalus”? What can we do?

She called in a speech therapist, who was very good. She said lots of great things, things I’d heard before, but not explained like she explained them. Both of them said we should try to be more consistent about signing. I said I feel like I’ve signed “milk” 100,000 times and she still doesn’t get it. The audiologist said, maybe she’ll get it when you do it the 100,001st time. We need to try and sign in her hand or with her hands, something tactile since her vision isn’t always working. Although sometimes we just need to feed her and get it over with, try to think of meal times as communication times. Sign the first few bites, every time, consistently, all of us. Every time she makes a sound, we should mimic her. We should provide her with choices (we do that, and she does very well with it). Say bababa and other early sounds to her a lot, move her lips while we do it. Have her play with cause-effect toys so she can see she can affect her environment. Toys that make noise, move, and light up are good (we’re covered there, she has LOTS of those singing, dancing toys). Make a big deal when she does something, like activates a toy, makes a sound, does a sign, makes a choice, so she can see how good she’s doing. To some extent, I /we need to incorporate these things as habits, and stop thinking of them as just another damn thing we have to do in addition to all the other damn things. They also think we should find a speech therapist who’s experienced with hearing impaired children. She thinks it should be easier to find a speech therapist since Maria has a hearing issue (compared to a kid w/o that complication). Maria’s current speech therapist is leaving us to meet with other therapists–it’s the new Arizona’s Early Intervention Program (for kids age 0-3) where the therapists meet with each other, not with the kids. Ridiculous and Thank God Maria’s not under 3 so she doesn’t have to participate in the madness. So, it’ll be a good opportunity to find someone more suited to her issues. All-in-all, it was a good doctor’s visit. I’m glad we made the trip. I need to find someone (audiologist) Maria can see locally, maybe not her current one. I have some ideas how to do that. In hindsight, I wish I’d asked Rosanne to take notes during the appointment. We got lots of good info, but it was a lot to take in and remember… I did ask the audiologists to write us a detailed report to help me justify whatever I need to justify.

Maria’s OT (occupational therapist) hasn’t seen her in more than a month and she was very excited to see all the improvements Maria has made (reaching, looking, fine motor skills). Rosanne noticed that Maria’s eating a lot better, she didn’t have a single seizure the whole weekend, she only stuck her fingers down her throat a couple times (when she was being ignored), but didn’t succeed in puking. We did see Amelia (Maria’s cousin). She talked about and looked at Maria, but still doesn’t want to touch her or be too near her.

Now my next battle is to get the insurance company to overturn their denial of her walker and sit-to-stand, but I think I have just about enough ammunition so there’s not even a shadow of a doubt that these items are essential. The physical therapist at school said Maria took a few steps in the walker there at school–the one Maria couldn’t even stand up in earlier in the year! Slowly but surely she’s making progress.

The other thing I’m working on (mountains of paperwork!) is getting hippotherapy for Maria (therapy with a horse). It’s supposed to really improve the upper body strength. I’ve heard that if you improve the gross motor skills, it has a ripple effect in improving many other areas, including cognitive. We will see!

Like Andy said, we (Sue, Maria, & I) went to see the Doodlebops live this afternoon! Of course, Maria fell asleep early last night so for the first time ever, she missed her 3rd dose of Depakene. Today she had a couple seizures–1st ones in almost 2 weeks! And she was very tired and wouldn’t sleep before the 4pm show. Not a good start…

We got there quite early, of course, got our tickets, and were personally escorted to our seats on the floor. We went the back way, past the small court where the Suns practice (nope, they weren’t there). The usher gave us the wrong seats, had to remove one of the chairs (which are all locked together) so Maria’s stroller would fit in. There was a row behind us and if someone was seated there, they wouldn’t be able to see around the stroller, but the guy said don’t worry about it. Then about 20-30 min later, another usher came and said we were in the wrong place, so she very kindly helped us move.

The good thing about getting there early, wearing bright tie dye (both Maria and I), and having the only stroller/wheelchair in the place, is that we stuck out a bit and got very good treatment. Maria pooped, of course, before the concert began, so I asked an usher if the only restrooms were upstairs, she said yes, then another usher asked if Maria needed the bathroom, and showed us to the “secret” bathrooms on the same level we were on–so no stairs.

We were about 10 rows from the stage, wonderful seats. It was pretty loud, Maria was squirmy, not sure if she was digging it or not. I had an empty chair next to me, so I laid her down and she fell asleep before intermission and stayed asleep until I (rudely) woke her up by grabbing her and dancing to the “Get On the Bus” song (last song). If you’re not familiar with them, go to YouTube, search for Doodlebops and watch one of the Get On the Bus clips; you’ll see how catchy it is.

The Doodlebops are very colorful, and their “wares” are too (and expensive!!)–dolls, hats, t-shirts, cups, etc. I bought Maria a shirt (tie dye; her first concert shirt) and a spinning light toy (therapy for her eyes, you know). It was quite an enjoyable time watching them in person, but would’ve been better if Maria’d been awake to dance with.

Our next concert adventure is the Wiggles!! They’re here April 5. Our seats aren’t quite as good, but I’m more excited about them because I’ve watched their program more often than the Doodlebops, so I know them better. (Plus, I kinda fell in love with Greg? when he officiated at Steve Irwin’s funeral, you know, the Crocodile Hunter.)

Today was a pretty good day. It started out when I was leaving for work. I said bye to Maria and when I was down the hall and almost to the laundry room, Sue yelled something. I went back to see what she said and she was shouting that Maria had waved to me! First time ever. She waves pretty consistently when Sue leaves. I walk her to the door and Maria puts her open hand on the screen door, but waving bye to her mama is new.

Then Maria and her class got to go on a field trip to the Fire Station across the street! I couldn’t go because I had a bunch of stuff at work going on (like interviewing people for my co-worker’s job, you know, they guy that retired in August!). Sue told me it was great. The most wonderful thing was that Maria’s friend, Samantha, kinda freaked when the firemen put their gas masks on. Apparently, she started crying, then went to Maria and Maria hugged her. So she and Maria just hugged for 30 sec or so, and Samantha wouldn’t leave Maria’s side for the rest of the field trip. Is that not sweet and amazing?!

No “episodes” (seizures) today, maybe none yesterday. The neurologist had me bump up the Depakene a bit; seems to be working.

Maria’s finished her 2nd week (of 5 weeks) of VitalStim. The therapist is wonderful, thank God! She puts 2 electrodes in varying places on Maria’s neck. The electrical pulses go back and forth between the electrodes. You have to be certified to do this, they’re quite serious and methodical about it. The insurance companies are just starting to pay for it and to realize that it’s not just experimental anymore–there’s hard evidence that it’s incredibly effective. The main thing I’ve noticed is that Maria is coughing better. Her coughs are more effective, she clears the phlegm better. I haven’t noticed much else, but Sue thinks she’s swallowing better. Maria does great for Kathy, VitalStim therapist. She works hard for Kathy and likes her a lot.

The other new things are we have a breathing machine (we may have told you about that before, we’ve had it a while). Each treatment takes about 15 min and usually Maria’s not so excited about it, so it’s 15 minutes of constant fighting. Our latest acquisition is a suction machine (although Manolis thought we were saying sex machine, cracks me up!). Oh yea, the suction machine is my personal favorite, you know, since I’m so fond of body fluids. Sue’s the main sucker, of course, but I’ve done it and so have Andy and Manolis. As you can imagine, Maria’s not too crazy about that machine either. If you can get it in there right (nose or throat), it really does the job!

I spent quite a bit of time on the phone yesterday with an insurance company and incompetent medical supply company. We tried out a walker and sit-to-stand (stander and seating positioner) on Oct 23. The med supply company got the prescription and letter of medical necessity from the doctor on Dec 3. After several phone calls inquiring about the status, I got a call Jan 3 saying they lost the prescription and could I have the doctor fax another one. I got a denial from the insurance company who told me when I called that the doc had submitted more info 10 days prior and they were reviewing it. I called again and the med supply company said the insurance company denied it again because they don’t feel it will help her. WHAT? So I called the insurance company again and they said the sit-to-stand was approved Jan 10 and faxed to the med supply company and the authorization # is xyz. So I called the insurance company and asked to speak to a manager who said when she called the insurance company they said, no it’s been denied. She was going to check further and call me back. That was yesterday. The insurance company gal said she was going to check on the walker and call me back. yea I’m still waiting for that call too. Un-be-fricking-lievable.

Now it’s 11:30pm and Maria’s still awake. I swear, it’s 2 nights of sleep, then 1 or 2 of of very little sleep. But at least Maria hugged Samantha today!

Poor Maria, she’s really been out of it lately… During most of her 2 wks off for winter break she was feeling fine, and then the weekend before school started, she had a fever and slept all weekend. She seemed fine Monday, so I took her to school and she slept through it. Monday night/Tuesday morning (the day we were supposed to fly to San Diego), she threw up for a few hours, so I kept her home from school and cancelled our trip. Slept and coughed all day, slept and coughed all night, had some loose bowels.

This morning her eyes looked puffy, but I figured it was from being horizontal so much. Then when Sue came and I saw Maria in the light, holy moly! Her eyes were very swollen, cheeks red and swollen, a couple scratches from rubbing her eyes so much, and nose packed with dried snot. (nice, huh?). She really looked bad, so I called the doc and took her in to another pediatrician in her doctor’s practice (her doc was booked, of course). He said it’s a stomach flu bug that’s going around, all we need to do is keep her hydrated with sports drinks and yogurt drinks, avoid milk. Try bananas and rice if she’ll eat.

Hmmmm. Sounded good (benign), but when I got home from work, her eyes looked to me like they had dark circles under them, especially her left eye, which is also much redder than the other one. It kinda seems like she might be getting another bout of chalazion. I put ointment in her eyes tonight, we’ll see how they look tomorrow. She slept all day, is drinking pretty well, not eating much,. As long as she’s drinking, I’m not so worried (although she weighed either 29 1/2 lb or 30 1/2 lb today with clothes, just like Andy said, same weight that she’s been for probably at least a year, so not eating for a couple days isn’t the best).

I’m so glad we cancelled our trip, it would have been awful for Maria to travel feeling like this. If she’s not significantly better by Friday, I’m going to call the pediatrician’s office again. Poor little thing!!

The week before Christmas I got sick. Maria & Manolis had the cold, now it was my turn. Sue was sick too, so I also had to take care of Maria. The weekend before Christmas, we drove to Oceanside to spend the holiday with Rosanne. Manolis spent several days painting their fence. Amelia was mildly interested in Maria this time–at least she wasn’t scared of her! We had nice dinners and a good visit, low-key Christmas.

We took off the day after Christmas; I wanted to see my friend, Karen, but she wasn’t available, so we just blindly headed up north using the GPS I got Manolis. Maria gets bored easy in the car now, but at least she sometimes falls asleep. I got her some homeopathic spray for her congestion, and it seems to have worked!! She’s breathing better than she has for a couple months.

We stayed in Santa Monica one night, went out on the famous Santa Monica Pier in the morning. It was freezing! Very windy, so Maria was freaking out so we were freaking out. Not a pleasant experience. Headed up to Santa Barbara, walked around the old town area. Very cute, but crowded, and still quite cold. Headed up to Santa Maria and stayed at the Santa Maria Inn, a nice historic inn suggested by Jill (the GPS).

Friday we drove across California to Vegas. Decided to abandon the idea of driving any farther north because Maria wasn’t having too much fun. Took us more than an hour to get the 2 blocks from the freeway to the Tropicana, it was so damned crowded in Vegas. Then after we checked in, it took us more than an hour to get into our room because the lock was messed up. A guy down the hall couldn’t get in either so we chatted until the security guy came. He (the other guest) has a 7-yr old son who doesn’t walk, has a feeding tube, I didn’t get too much info beyond that, but he was very helpful with Maria–told the security guard that Maria has a problem, so they’d better take care of us; he also “gave me permission” to change Maria’s poopy diaper in the hallway. Because of him, either the security guard or the maintenance engineer stayed with us the whole time, while Manolis unloaded the car, found a parking spot, went and got a hot pot to warm Maria’s food. Finally at 9:30pm we were in the room.

We hung out at the fashion mall Saturday, Manolis gambled a little bit, I walked around for an hour or so. Nothing too exciting. It was so busy (holiday weekend, near New Year’s eve). Just the few times I walked through the casino, the smoke triggered a relapse of my cold, only worse this time. We drove home Sunday, I missed work all week. Sue took care of Maria, who was healthy until Saturday. Now I don’t know if she can go to school tomorrow, and Tuesday we’re supposed to fly to San Diego for an audiology appointment. Happy Holidays!

Maria had her latest barium swallow test last Thursday. I’d re-scheduled it twice already and of course Maria had a pretty rough night before and morning before the test. I thought about cancelling again, but figured we may as well get it over with. She did ok on the honey consistency, and on next thicker consistency, can’t recall what they called it, but I’d never heard it before–honey thick or honey paste?, then she dipped a cheeto(sp?)-like snack that Maria’s been doing well with in pudding consistency; Maria swallowed the pudding, then while chewing on the snack, she silently aspirated the pudding, so they stopped the test. The speech therapist doing the test went over it with us, which was very nice of her. Before she had a chance to say much else, I said “Don’t even talk to us about a G-tube. I’m not willing to consider that right now. We’re on the list for the Vital Stim (where they stimulate her throat muscles using tiny painless electric shocks), and we need to complete that before considering a G-tube.” She said ok, but if Maria’s voice gets rough after eating or drinking or if she spikes a fever for no reason, then call your doctor immediately. Yea, we’ll get right on that.

Rather depressing.

I did go home and thicken her depakene (one of her seizure medicines), and it is much easier to give it to her that way. Although Maria’s been x-rayed and scoped and they’ve found no evidence of aspiration, nor does she spike fevers very often, she does breathe rough a lot. Yes it bothers us. No we don’t know what to do about it.

Friday was our favorite doctor’s appt — I took Maria to the dentist. I told him he’s our favorite appt because so far he hasn’t found anything wrong. No cavities, no rare diseases, syndromes, or other nonsense. (Now I just have to get myself in to see one one of these days…)

I’m not super thrilled with the OT. She pushes Maria too hard, doesn’t understand cortical visual impairment at all, and is more critical than the other therapists. I’m going to get her some CVI info. Today I suggested letting Maria lay down and she did better. I was out of the room a lot and when I came in, Maria was stiff, looked mad, and wasn’t doing as she was being “asked” to do. Not quite sure what to do about it. She’s not too good on taking hints, but I’m probably not being direct enough. She doesn’t appear to understand how hard it is for Maria to maintain an upright position and do the things she’s being asked to do…

Tomorrow’s Maria’s Christmas party at school. Although I finally got the cold that’s going around, I’m planning to go, as is Uncle Andy and Sue (Manolis has to work).

I was in Boise all last week at a meeting. Maria had a pretty rough week. It was very hard on me being gone while hearing about all the episodes she’s having, 2x people told me she seemed “out of it”, and one day the teacher sent her to the nurse–although why that day and not another day I’m not real sure… I did go by and see my old house, still looks the same, I still really miss it. Ate at all my favorite old restaurants, stayed at one of my favorite B&Bs (which has gone a bit downhill), had a pretty good time, considering at the same time my sweet baby is having many many many seizures or whatever the hell they are.

We went to Jerome yesterday. It’s an hour or two from Phoenix. Cute old mining town, but more of a Rosanne and Cathy town than a Manolis or Maria town–narrow streets, rough sidewalks, not very stroller friendly; lots of cute tiny shops–also not stroller friendly, Manolis got bored pretty fast. Nice drive up and back. Poor Maria was in the back having multiple episodes. I wondered if she was carsick and showed it through open-mouthed gasping. She doesn’t seem to enjoy travelling as much as she used to. Maria did puke a LOT the previous midnight–so much that I had to change the sheets, bathe her, wash her hair, and do laundry that night–so perhaps she was still feeling a bit puny??

And speaking of vomit, last weekend we went to Manolis’ boss’s (sp?) so Maria and I could meet his wife and let Maria ride a horse. They have bunches of horses, dogs, and cats. Maria & I “rode” (sat on while the horse ate) on a HUGE draft horse. Not sure if she liked it much. Of course, that was the day she went in for the blood test and got the new breathing treatment and more antibiotics that Andy was talking about. She puked a lot that day too, I was thinking of cancelling, but we decided to try it since she seemed better in the late afternoon. Less than a mile before their house (they live about 60 miles from us), Maria really let loose. Completely soaked her shirt, pants, car seat. It was a LOT. But Danielle (wife of boss) wasn’t bothered and held Maria facing out the 3 or 4 more times she vomited. Somehow we all survived to tell the tale.

Maria didn’t have school today, back to our routine tomorrow with the added twist of a feeding therapy at 8am at a place that’s probably more than 30 min from us, so we’re going to attempt to leave the house at 7:15am. I managed to bathe her this evening, so all we have to do by 7:15 is give her her 3 oral medicines, the breathing treatment, breakfast, and milk, and do her hair and dress her. Tonight I decorated a paper turkey feather for school (it was a family project). I glued elbow macaroni to the bottom like feather tips, and silver balls to the top, like I have no idea what. Hopefully it won’t be the worst one.

I got a call Friday telling me a spot opened up for Maria to start the Vital Stim treatment (hook electrodes to her throat and slightly shock it while drinking to build the swallow muscles) as early as this week. We’d have to go to one of 2 locations (75 min away or 60 min away) at 8 or 9 every morning, 4x/week for 5 weeks. With all the other stuff going on, I told her we just couldn’t do it now. I also missed a talk on Saturday about how to communicate with a person that has multiple disabilities. It was way the hell down in the far SE corner of the valley, probably 60-70 miles from our house. Andy gave me permission to skip it. As challenging as it is sometimes, Manolis and I always say that one smile from Maria wipes away an entire bad day….

Yesterday I went to Maria’s school for her 1st Halloween party! It was very cute, one of the aids held a boom box playing Monster Mash real loud while the 2 preschool classes paraded through the school trick or treating. Of course, Maria was the cutest one by far. I’m glad I went, even though (especially because?) work has been crazy busy lately.

Tonight I dressed Maria up again in her cute outfit (kind of a hippie witch) and we walked around the neighborhood. (Just tried to download a photo and it didn’t work, maybe Andy can do it.) I decided not to trick or treat because we don’t need more candy. It was beautiful out and many of the neighbors were sitting outside to hand out candy. Some seemed to think it was strange that we were only walking, not trick or treating.

The other thing that happened yesterday was a woman came over to show us a sitter/stander. It seemed pretty good, Maria sat real well in it; if you push here and there, she can go from sitting to standing. I like how she stands in it better than her current stander. Then this woman happened to mention that she had a walker in the car, so we asked her to get it and it was awesome! It’s called a Miniwalk, made in Norway(?). It’s not very supportive, and at first I thought it was too minimalist, but it turned out to be pretty good. The Norweigans believe if you support the child just a bit, then they’ll work harder and build their muscles. It sure worked with Maria! She seemed to love it and even took some steps in the short time she was in it! If you told me 3 or 4 years ago that I’d be excited to get my child a walker I wouldn’t have believed it, but now I can’t wait until we get one. Barb, the physical therapist, is going to write a letter of medical necessity for these 2 pieces of equipment and we’ll hopefully have them in a couple months or so.