January/February Update

Amanda has had two important doctor's appointments in the past two months. The first was an appointment with Duke Infectious Disease. Amanda had a virus in Tampa over Christmas and she followed that with 2.5 weeks of diarrhea upon our return to Wilmington. Given her past experiences with c-difficile, we got her checked out. Thankfully, after a bunch of tests, everything was negative and the conclusion was that she had viral enteritis. We are very thankful that she no longer has any c-difficile issues at all.

Her second appointment was with Dr Wooten at Raleigh Neurology where she had an EEG and follow-up appointment. Her EEG addressed some eye movements that she has had over the past couple of months. The good news is that the eye movements did not appear to be seizures on the EEG. While seizure activity can not be conclusively ruled out because it is possible that it is coming from deeper in the brain than the EEG can measure, both the neurologist and the technician indicated that they thought it was more of a behavioral issue than a seizure. She did one eye movement while Dr Wooten was watching and she snapped right out of it with stimulation, so it looks behavioral. He said that made hime think even more so that these are a form of self-stimulation rather than anything else. While we will technically have to take a wait and see approach and track things over time, we are very optimistic that they are not nothing to worry about.

Other than that, Amanda continues to progress in all areas. Yesterday in speech therapy, she said "yes." She also says Mama, Nana, Dada, BoBo, more, bye-bye, etc. According to her physical therapist, she is doing better at initiating movement on the right side, bearing weight on the right, demonstrating cause and effect skills on the computer, better balancing and protective responses with her left side, keeping her balance while reaching outside her support area. Her occupational therapist has seen similar improvements. She also is learning to take blocks out of containers and putting them back in. She is very interested in her toys, environment, sister etc. Her walking also continues to improve - she even walks on a treadmill now. Overall, she is still doing really, really well. Thanks for your continued prayers and support.