Holiday Party

My little baby is so grown up. We have been telling her all about Santa for a few weeks now. She understood that she had to tell him what she wanted for Christmas. At the party this weekend she waited for her turn. When Santa came over to her she was ready for him. The second he bent down to say hello she started telling him everything. It was so cute. Her talking is just sounds, but you could tell she was giving him her list. I wish I knew what she asked for so I could be sure she gets it. I will just have to keep my fingers crossed that I guessed right.

Her school therapies finish up this week then she is off until the new year. She is pretty busy this week. She saw her neuro yesterday. That went well. She has not had one of her seizures in about 3 weeks now. That is very good. Nothing changed though. Maybe we just had a bad batch of medicine or something.

Casey went to see ortho this morning. Her PT noticed that her knees felt more bony than usual. The doctor wanted to take a look and see what was going on. He said they are okay, she is just stiff and hyper extending some. We had him check her spine and ankles too. For now we just stay the course. She will go back in March and get a full round of xrays.

While we were in ortho we had the brace guy check her AFOs. They have been bothering her some lately. He stretched them out a little. If she still seems to be irritated with them then we will have to go in to his office soon for a full readjustment. This pair of AFOs has given us so much trouble. Her last pair never had to have any adjustments at all. She is growing so much now that everything just keeps changing.

We are trying to get our Christmas shopping finished up this week. Next week some of my family will be in town. Christmas is at our house so Casey can participate. I am so glad that family is flexible enough to come to her. We will post pictures and updates after the holiday. We hope everyone has a safe and merry Christmas.

Looks A Lot Like Christmas...

I LOVE this time of year. Crisp, cool nights and warm, sunny days. Everyone is getting Christmas lights hung. I don't know what it is about Christmas lights, I just see them and it makes me happy. We put our tree up this weekend and Tim got the outside lights done last weekend. Now all we need to do is finish shopping.

Thanksgiving was okay. Casey was a bit sick the week before, but she was feeling better by Thanksgiving. Her cousin Riley and his mom stayed here the night before. She and Riley got to play a little and watch the parade. Casey liked the parade; Riley did not seem to care for it. My other sister hosted dinner this year. Tim stayed home with Casey and I went down to eat and visit with family for a little bit. Of course, I brought home some turkey and trimmings for Tim.

We have not had much luck finding a new nurse. They sent out a couple, but neither really worked. One was okay, but not great. The other was a mess. We just found out yesterday that one of Casey's previous nurses (that we really liked) is going to be able to take 2 days a week. We still have to find someone for the other 3 days and our 1-2 night shifts. We'll get there. We would rather take our time and find the right nurse(s) than just fill in the shifts with a warm body.

Since we have not had much help we have had to adjust some of Casey's activities over the past few weeks. Hopefully we will get everything straightened out soon so we can get back to a normal schedule after the holidays.

Some of you may know that Casey does not like cats. We always just figured it was because movies make them out to be villains. Turns out there is more to it. She went to a party at a neighbors this weekend. They have a few cats. Usually when we are over there she stays in her chair (high above the cats). There were some kids playing on the floor so I took her out of her chair and sat on the floor with her on my lap. In just a couple minutes she started sneezing and wiggling all around. I handed her to Tim to get her back in her chair. He held her for a few minutes and she was just getting worse. We had to leave the party pretty quickly. As soon as we got home we noticed her entire body was covered in hives. I worked to clear her out and get her positioned while Tim grabbed the Benadryl. She started to calm down right away (just removing her from the environment). As soon as the Benedryl kicked in the hives went away and she took a good nap. Poor baby :( She is horribly allergic to cats. I guess she tried to tell us.

This weekend Casey is going to a Christmas party (no cats). She will get to see Santa, sing, make decorations, etc. I think she will have a good time. We'll post some pictures of the party next week. Hopefully we can post some good news on nurses as well. Until then, we hope everyone is doing well.