It's Pretty Quiet

Things on the cancer-side of Brynlee are pretty quiet and have totally settled down, but we are still really busy with therapy. I have been enjoying having Brynlee be free of her Broviac, and we are enjoying our break from the cancer appointments and no longer having to take care of Broviac. We are also finishing the Septra, which is the antibiotic that Brynlee has been taking since she was diagnosed to help prevent pneumonia. Tomorrow will be the last day that she will take it and then she will officially be off of all her medications.

As for therapy, we continue with hippotherapy once a week. Brynlee has been riding a horse named Phebe, who is a big horse and does not like men. She makes me a little nervous with her fiestiness, but she gets the job done, and we are grateful for the opportunity to participate in this therapy.

Brynlee's physical therapy is still going about the same. We have been working with her home e-stim machine, and I still don't feel very confident in my abilities with it. The biggest challenge is trying to get her to actively use her legs while the e-stim is on, i.e., trying to get her to stand. Doing therapy at home with Brynlee is a constantly evolving process of trying to remain creative with new things to entertain her with to try to get her to work. It is not easy! What works one day she will hate the next.

Last week at physical therapy we were able to put casts on Brynlee's legs to get molds so that we can get some custom braces for her feet and ankles. We are also going to be meeting with the representative from the company that makes standers to get her going with one of those. They said that the stander should grow with her over the next couple of years. It will take a few months to get the stander, however, but I hope that it will help her.

Other than a head cold that both Brynlee and I have had this past week, she has been doing well. She is currently cutting two more teeth on the bottom, which perhaps has contributed to some of her fussiness this past week. We also had a step in the right direction with the sippy cup this week. On two separate occasions I was able to get her to drink a little bit of water out of the sippy cup. This is huge! We are just over two months away from scans again, so hopefully we will get her drinking a clear liquid by then so we can avoid the NG tube for the oral contrast she has to take with the CT scan. She is also chattering up a storm. Some of her favorite phrases, "Hi Dada," "Bye," "Mama," "Yes," "Uh oh," "Ow," "What," and a bunch of other words that we don't quite clearly understand. She also has a couple of songs on the radio that she loves to sing along to. We are having a lot of fun with Brynlee right now and enjoying seeing her developing and growing.