January 29, 2008

The past 7-10 days were a bit intense, but things are definitely looking up. Amanda had been trying a new medicine with the intent of getting off the one that causes kidney stones and it did not go well. She was incredibly fussy and tired the whole time ... so much so that she wouldn't even engage in therapy. It all came to a head this weekend with intense crying, muscle weakness and lethargy. Thankfully, she is now off that medicine and has returned to her normal happy self! What a wonderful gift to have our happy, silly little girl back!!!! She has been very happy since Sunday evening and has been giving hugs, giving five, clapping, waving bye-bye and giggling a lot. To try to get off Topamax, we are back on Keppra but on a lower dose and we have seen nothing strange at all so far. She is definitely happy! We will continue to wean Topamax over the next few weeks in hopes of getting fully off it. Our goal is to get down to a low dose of one medicine (Keppra if things continue to go well at this lower dose) and give her as much opportunity as possible to take off in development. She is primed and ready for another developmental spurt so we are excited about her potential. She is also growing like a weed.

Katie brought home straight "A"s again with her report card. We are very proud of her. She was one of the 4 students in her school to "win" the science fair and progress to the county-wide competition. She gets to have her name and picture in the yearbook and won a very nice medal. Way to go Katie. She did an excellent project analyzing which stain removers work best when washing clothes in hot and cold water. Let me know if anyone wants to know the results.

Paws4people came up with a great way to raise money that doesn't cost anyone a cent. I will be passing along information soon on how to take advantage of the opportunity. It works a lot like UPromise where as long as you log on to Amanda's mall prior to doing on-line shopping (i.e. you access the companies participating through that site, the companies pay back a rebate to Paws4people for your purchases). The cost to you is the same regardless of whether you go directly to the company or go through Amanda's mall so it is a pretty neat way to raise money. I hope to get her mall set up this weekend. I do a lot of my shopping online so I am excited about the process.

I hope everyone has a great week! Love to all!

Susan