She's almost 5!

We've been quite busy this summer - enjoying the sun, having fun at the cabin, and doing lots of swimming. We also went on a little trip to the Oregon coast with friends. It's been great!

 

I can't believe Summer will be 5 in just a few weeks! Since my last post (geez, time has flown), Summer has had two MRIs, both of which showed no change. We had a bit of a scare early in the year, when she didn't want to dance at ballet because she didn't want to shake her head around, leading to an ER trip and an off-schedule CT scan. Everything was fine, and we decided to take a break from dance for a while since it seemed she had made the whole thing up to get out of dance for the evening.

Instead, she's been enjoying gymnastics and soccer, with a little bit of swimming thrown in for the summer. She's a bit less coordinated than her peers, so we've been trying to keep her in physical activities that challenge her muscles and help develop her coordination. Gymnastics, especially, has helped quite a bit, and for the summer she's been having weekly 1/1 lessons with her favorite coach so she could get more hands-on help with parts that are especially challenging for her (keeping her legs straight for stretching, walking on the balance beam, etc.).

The lack of coordination could be that she's having trouble keeping up with the incredible amount of growth we've seen since she's been on growth hormone (she's tall now!)...or it could be that she inherited my clumsy genes. Who knows. We'll be seeing a doctor from the Rehabilitation Medicine Care Team in our next round of follow-ups to find out what else we can do to help her in that area. These doctors specialize in physical therapy for children with many conditions, including traumatic brain injuries, which is essentially what Summer has after the tumor and surgeries, so they will certainly be able to give us pointers and reassurance.

We'll also have a follow-up session with the neuropsychology team where they'll decide whether to re-test her now or wait a little while. She's very excited for school to start back up in a couple of weeks. She's been much more interested in art and reading and writing lately, which I love to see. In other major news - she gave up her pacifiers! They've been such a comfort thing for her with all she's been through, that I wasn't in any hurry to make her get rid of them...but the time finally came.

Also, coming up on September 29th is the annual Run of Hope. This is our fourth year participating, and we can't wait! It's always a very fun, family friendly event. We hope you can join Team Summer!