Summertime!

Hello friends!

Just wanted to offer a brief update on Lily...

She's doing great these days! We are still on the Ketogenic Diet at a 3:1 ratio, which Lily tolerates fairly well. We go through periods of difficulty, but overall she does well with it. Her favorite meals are eggs & fruit (because I can hide 100% of the cream & butter in the eggs), Ketocal formula, and a smoothie recipe with jello, cream, fruit, egg beatersa, and oil. Sounds appetizing, no? LOL!

Since the diet has been such a big help in her seizures, we've been able to wean Lily off her Topamax. We're still in the process, but we started at 75mg 2x/day, and we're now down to 25mg 1x/day. We're so close to be off of "DOPE-amax", and have really seen a change in Lily's alertness and awareness of her surroundings. Can't wait to be done with this!

She's still part of the Ganaxolone study, and we still think the med helps her. It's hard to believe it's been a year since we were in Los Angeles starting this new therapy for infantile spasms. The study keeps getting extended so as far as we can tell, Lily will be on this as long as we think it is helping.

Lily turned THREE this week! It's just amazing. She enjoyed her birthday dinner of smoothie, and loved watching the candles on the cake even though she couldn't indulge. She loved opening her gifts, though was much more excited about the wrapping paper than the actual gift.

We completed her IEP for the school district in June. We were THRILLED that the school district OFFERED an 1:1 aide for Lily, which we figured we'd have to fight uphill for. We have a little bit of work to do on the verbiage of her goals, but overall we're excited for her to start school in the fall.

We're also pursuing a diagnosis of autism for Lily. She doesn't present as a "classic" autistic child, however she has enough of the criteria (in my opinion) to qualify for a diagnosis. Having this diagnosis will open up lots of doors & therapies for her, including Applied Behavior Analysis which I believe Lily would REALLY benefit from. We see neurodevelopmental in August, so we'll see where we stand at that point.

Lily & Hank are going to a summer camp at the end of the month! There is a fantastic program through a local hospital that is designed specifically for special needs kids & their siblings. The twins will be in a small group, around five kids, and there are two teachers for each "pod", plus each child has a "buddy" which is most likely a high school student doing their extra credit for the summer. I hear that there is a waiting list to be a volunteer and that some of the students enjoy it so much they come back year after year, even after finishing out their credit!

The camp takes place at a HUGE park just north of us, and there are classrooms, fields, playgrounds, and a petting zoo!! So exciting, and I think the kids are just going to LOVE it.

Lily is also on the waiting list at Little Bit Riding Center where she would get hippotherapy. Hippotherapy is "a treatment that uses the multidimensional movement of the horse; from the Greek word "hippos" which means horse. Specially trained physical, occupational and speech therapists use this medical treatment for clients who have movement dysfunction. Historically, the therapeutic benefits of the horse were recognized as early as 460 BC. The use of the horse as therapy evolved throughout Europe, the United States and Canada." Her PT/OT & SLP have both suggested that Lily would benefit from this therapy. Unfortunately, there is a YEAR LONG waiting list at LIttle Bit, so it's a while before she'll get to start.

We're starting swimming lessons with Lily again tomorrow; it's just a parent-tot class, and not specific to special needs, but Lily loves teh water and I think she'll enjoy the playtime with all four of us.

Next weekend is Uncle John's wedding, and Lily is a flower girl! There are actually two flower girls, and Lily will be pulled in a wagon down the aisle. She looks like an angel in her flower girl dress, and I can't wait to share pictures.

OH! Our Epilepsy Walk was a HUGE success! We raised over $3300 for the Epilepsy Foundation Northwest. We are so grateful to everyone for supporting Lily and the disease she battles daily.