Our trip to Cape Town for Bella’s EEG and MRI went ok. It was very stressful and she hated it, especially all the sedation she had with Chloryl Hydrate. Her MRI came back completely normal which means the last MRI we had was correct. The one she had when she was 1 year old showed possibly Polymicrogyria but the doctors say that it was just her ‘developing brain’ and you can’t read too much into MRI’s when a child is that young. So as it stands now she does not have cortical dysplasia. The questions is then, what is it? I doubt we will ever know.
Her EEG also came back completely clear which means the staring spells we have seen are not seizures and the abnormal / spiking activity we were seeing last year has no settled with the increased Tegretol dose and the change from Tegretol liquid to Tegretol CR tablets. We are not going to do the Modified Atkins diet and we may in fact decrease her Keppra a little bit. She has been doing well at school and has now moved from matching objects to matching pictures. She is also working on a PECS communication system where she will hand over a picture to indicate what she wants. We haven’t seen this at home yet but she is very good at taking our hand and leading us to where she wants to go and what she wants.
On Saturday 11th February it was Bella’s 4th birthday. It’s quite hard to believe she is already 4 years old. She wore a beautiful pink party dress that her Great Granny gave her and loved all the attention, especially when we sang Happy Birthday to her (repeatedly)… We are having a combined birthday party for her and Leo in March when Grant gets back from his trip to Russia. Bella has also started swimming lessons. She loves swimming with her Bentley belt so we decided she needs to learn to swim on her own no matter how long it takes.
Bella in her new party dress
Max and Leo are both doing well. Max has been in Grade 1 for only a month and I am amazed at all the words he is able to read already. He is like a little sponge soaking in everything. Leo is also developing at a rapid rate and is very close to walking and has learnt to wave. He puts his hand up in the air and if you give his hand a ‘high five’ he laughs hysterically. It is very cute.
