UPDATES 3-11-2008
Thank you for visiting our site and welcome to our weekly update on Lauren.
Lauren continues to amaze us with her gains in strength and mobility lately.
Both of the physical therapists that treat Lauren
believe that she will be walking by the time she
turns 3. She can stand independently for a few
minutes in her AFO's (ankle-foot orthotics) with
someone holding their arms out, just in case she
starts to tip over. She continues to crawl faster
and faster and can get to things on shelves that
used to be safely out of reach by going up on her
knees.
The big news this week is that Lauren will be
getting brain and spinal MRIs at Children's downtown
on Thursday. The neurosurgeon wants to make sure
that the posterior fossa (chiari) decompression
surgery that was done last year is still helping.
Sometimes this surgery needs to be done a few times
to be effective. He also wants to review the size
of the arachnoid cyst that Lauren has pressing on
her spine. We will not know the results of the MRIs
for 2 weeks.
Lauren was scheduled to have new ear tubes and a
frenulectomy (tongue clipping to allow for more
tongue range of movement when eating and speaking)
done on 2/27, but she had been diagnosed with a
sinus infection 2 days prior and was not on
antibiotics long enough to ensure her safety with
general anesthesia. These surgeries have been
postponed until the end of April.
On a fun note, Lauren tried ketchup for the first
time today. She dipped a straw into it and put some
immediately in her mouth. I don't think she hated
it because she did it one more time. It was so
great to see her even interested in food. She bit
down on a biter biscuit during speech therapy last
week and that was something new as well. Our big
challenge is getting her to drink liquids, but we
know that we will get there if we keep trying and we
listen to the advice we get from our wonderful group
of therapists. Lauren also says "outside" now. I
think that she enjoys getting out of the house as
much as her sister does.
Have a great week!
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