Having read my last two posts, you may have gotten the (erroneous) impression that my Christmas was not terribly good.
Au contraire, mes amis!
It seems only fitting to mark the milestone of my 200th post with this picture of my niece, Clara, demonstrating her skill at sitting up, something she could not do until four days before Christmas:
The steroid treatment she's undergoing to combat her seizures appears to be working, and when I snapped this picture on Christmas morning, she had been seizure-free for two weeks. She had bad days on Tuesday and Wednesday, and couldn't get settled for anything...one side effect of the steroid treatment is restlessness marked by crying jags that end as suddenly as they begin.
On Wednesday, Kate and Joe reduced her dosage of Phenobarbitol (the first medication they tried to ease her seizures), and it was as though someone flipped a switch inside her. On Thursday, she began to smile at people, and by the evening, she'd invented a game to play with Joe, where she'd hold up her fist until he touched it with his, then she'd pull it back and smile. On Friday, she began to interact with the rest of us, looking me in the eye for the first time in her life over lunch. She treated me to a half smile, then.
On Friday, Kate and Joe began to try to get her to open her fists a little, and offered her things to grab...by Saturday evening, she was grabbing a map out of Joe's hand.
So the best part of Christmas? Getting to watch a miracle happen, right before our very eyes.
4 comments:
My wife teaches children with both physical and mental disabilities. She is amazed by the unbelievable changes in some when the parents find a doctor with a different course of medication. She says the changes are sometimes like the child is reborn.
Sounds like an amazing Christmas present! Happy New Year!
Or 18 days.
Or 20.
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