Another long time no post but we have been thoroughly enjoying summer! I think the more stable Gesina's situation and my ability to function as her mother is, the less I blog. It's when things become really crazy and dramatic that I need the blog to "get it out". So the less you see from me, the better ;-) But for those out there following along, Gesina has taken the next step on weaning off of phenobarb and this time, no withdrawal symptoms! She only takes a half pill at night and we already know that she is now below the "therapeutic level". No more pheno fog and it shows! Gesina smiles in response to her environment!!! And she smiles a lot which so warms my heart. I was known as a smiley kid so to see Gesina repeat that is amazing... I have a smiley kid!!! Sorry for the exclamation points but to see her smile in response to Adrian, me or her many friends from Team Gesina just takes my breath away. I will admit that as I watched her in water therapy this morning cracking her smirky little smile at her physical therapist when she pushed with her feet off from the side of the pool I GOT MISTY EYED! I think I used to feel this amount of love for my first cat Yoshi once or twice but with Gesina, it's a million times stronger, comes out of nowhere and can take your breath away. For reference, this is Yoshi and yes, she was a cuddler:
You would think I had a pic of Gesina smiling but... ah... I'm too busy getting misty eyed to grab my phone. I'll work on getting one but in the mean time, here is Gesina getting ready to go outside at daycare. She is the coolest kid I know!
We are still pretty much seizure free (one minor episode when she was going to sleep one night but Neuro and I are not convinced it was a seizure so we are "keeping an eye out" in case it happens again). Gesina's wheelchair is taking forever but we are working on it. Next up is getting her in a stander because she has strong legs and does like to stand if I hold her head up. She loves going to the pool so I do that as much as I can. And vision-wise, she is making strides. Adrian ALMOST got her to laugh last night by swatting her light up balloon which startled her and then amused her. She also responded to him tickling her! She has ignored all tickling previously but is now starting to notice it. It's a fun time as she starts to notice and respond to her environment more. Here she is LOOKING at her toy.
I'll work on getting some more smiles in the photos for next time. Yay summer!
