9.22.11

Aimee started school last Thursday and is currently going 2 days a week for 2 1/2 hours.

Here she is ready to head to school with her new backpack. She was very excited.

And actually she was very excited and happy almost that whole first day.

By the end of class she was wiped out!

She has been doing pretty well in the classes. Only sleeping about 1/4-1/3 of the time. The other kids love her and it is so sweet to see them bring her toys and hold her hand. There is one little girl in class that is especially enamored with her. She even cried this morning when she got to class and Aimee wasn't there yet! :) So, even though she doesn't know it, Aimee has friends already. 

I haven't left her alone there yet, but tomorrow we are going in to meet with the school nurse and teacher to develop a nursing plan for her. If nothing else, once little baby brother comes, I will plan on leaving her at school by herself. 

I am still so shocked at what they feed the kids in class though. I suppose the most shocking part is that the teacher thinks it is healthy. The school provided prune chocolate muffins for breakfast this morning, but the teacher said she didn't think those were any good, so she pulled out leftover pizza and fed that to them instead. Her comment to me when she did it was that so many kids don't get good food at home, so she tries to make sure they eat nutritious things at school. Huh. Interesting. 

Monday Aimee and I went in for an appointment with the Endocrinology clinic. I took my camera along to show you what a day at the hospital is like, but the battery died when we got there. Undeterred, I pulled out my phone and took some pictures of a questionable quality. However, then I managed to smash my phone in the cargo door of our tahoe while putting the wheel chair back. Sigh...if I am able to recover the photos, I will be sure to post and let you have a more visual experience of Aimee's day there. For now, you'll have to imagine it for yourself.

We had this appointment to be sure that she had no additional symptoms of early puberty. After visual examinations, they sent us over to radiology for a bone age x-ray. This is simply an x-ray of her hand to see if her growth plates are appropriate for her age. (Don't worry, baby and I stayed in the hallway when her x-ray was taken) We then got the results back that her bone age is normal (or close enough to normal). However, they cautioned us that most likely Aimee will begin puberty too early and will need to be given hormone shots to stop it. She is at a high risk for this because of her seizures, high palate and other neurological abnormalities. We will just watch out for symptoms and take her back to this department if we notice anything unusual before the age of 8. Which means, one department we don't have to go back to for awhile! Yipee!

Side note: Aimee has been having more seizures over this past week that she was before. She has had about one every day and a few longish ones. I was really hoping to keep her medication the same until getting the sleep study results and am now debating on if we should call Neurology to request an increase.