2009 Updates
We ended December with a bang. On Christmas Day Emily came down with a stomach bug. Oh was it miserable! Diahrrea and retching . . . No one else got sick thankfully.
Emily's new equipment came (peanut ball and scooterboard) and she's been enjoying them both. She also got a switch communication device. We're working with her on expressing"Yes," "No," Come here," and "potty."
After seeing an interesting infomercial on teaching babies to read, I made Emily an educational video to see if we can teach her word recognition.
In January, Emily had her dental check up. During the scaling, a piece of a baby tooth cracked off so in June she had it extracted. She did well under novacaine and happy gas!
We got some snow so Anna and Ben took her sledding one afternoon.
In early spring Em cried every time we walked away or stopped paying attention to her. She's never been like that so was really weird. Seemed like some sort of separation anxiety. She started crying when we put her to bed too. She's getting better, but mid-summer we still have issues!
She's been healthy - maybe a few sniffles here and there. When the slightest indication of a cold shows up we get out the Zicam. It has worked beautifully.
At the end of March Emily got a new day nurse named Terri on Fridays. Then in Aug. she had to quit because of lifting restrictions. In April, Emily began serial casting to correct her club foot. She was casted every couple weeks until we realized that the bone structure in her foot was such that we could no longer get correction without major pain. The doc discontinued casting in early June. The foot is still not straight, but it's better than it was. She got a soft brace to hold the current correction at night. We've decided to put a hold on correcting her right knee which is dislocated and rotated. SO keep praying for a good plan to develop - actually just pray for another miracle for both limbs! Emily now wears night time hand splints to keep her thumbs from tucking in.
Emily celebrated her 8th birthday on July 9th! She's come such a long way. She weighs 53 pounds and is 3ft 11 inches tall! Praise God for 8 years with her!
Insurance bought Emily a new bed - a twin sized crib! What a blessing! She also got a larger stroller.
Summer ended and school began again. She's in the same class and is now their star pupil - the one they expect has the most potential. She'll be learning all kinds of things this year.
Emi had a followup with the cardiologist in Sept. He said that everything looks the same as last year - which is good - and that we don't need to come back until next year!
Coming soon - dental check up, MICkey check up, eye check up...
