Updates
Isabelle gives high fives now. She has for a long time. She also is crawling like crazy. She follows up from room to room and comes to us when we say "come here". Awesome.
Posts
Sedated echo
Isabelle had a sedated echo today to check on her aortic valve leak which is new. It was done at Boston Children's hospital. Unfortunately, she will need open heart surgery again in the next 3-6 months for the obstruction in her left ventricle. It is starting to cause her aortic valve to leak which can be tricky to fix. They need to look at the pictures and videos more closely and if they think it's more serious it will have to be sooner but I am shooting for July when I am home. There should be no complications from this. And there is a 99.9% success rate. The obstruction is called a subaortic stenosis.
Lamination
Using the new laminator, I made Isabelle new pictures so she can start pointing at things she wants etc... And so we can start naming important things and people in her life and give her choices. For example, "which song would you rather? Itsy bitsy spider or twinkle twinkle"? and then present both the spider and star pics and have her reach for one.
Loss of a pet
We had to put Bruin down today. Luckily I don't think this will affect Isabelle - she's too young to remember him. Scott and I got him when he was only a 3 month old puppy on Christmas in 2010. We drove all the way to NY to get him. He picked us out as he ran into Scott's open arms. But even then, the abuse he endured from his owners left life long scars on him. He had been kept in a kiddie pool with like 10 other puppies where they barely moved. He didn't know how to really walk when we got him. He was very aggressive with food as they fought over small amounts of it in the pool. He was extremely skittish around many things like the fridge or black trash bags. We can only imagine why but he needed anxiety meds to help him. He developed seizures at a young age and needed to be on powerful drugs to combat them. We only found out this week that if a dog has a seizure for over 5 minutes it can cause brain damage and he had a few that lasted 10 or 15 minutes so I am
Eating
It is shocking not only the amount of different things Isabelle eats but also the amount she eats. Many kids with down syndrome have trouble eating and sensory issues with textures. This kid eats everything. She eats way more food than Jack does.
Steroids & croup
Her croup cleared RIGHT up after 5 days of steroids. Inhalers need to be continued until her tonsils and adenoids come out.
