Hi Everybody,
As most of you know, my mom, Pam Gaya passed away the beginning of February. She had a tumor right below her brain. Please check out the blog I've been doing for her at http://www.pamgaya.blogspot.com/ for more details on the surgery and everything.
Mom loved being "Grammie Pammie" and while I miss her terribly, I take great comfort in knowing that she still gets to be Grammie Pammie up there with Emma and Maddy. She will always live in me and Jocelyn and she has given me so much that I will never forget. Fortunately, this separation is only for a time and a blink of an eye in the eternal perspective. I look forward to seeing her again!
As for the AbbyGirl, there is a lot to cover so let's hop on it...
Alright, Abby's brace. As you all know Abby has trouble with the left side of her body. And for those just checking or who have forgotten what I said before about her problems with her walking, here's a quick recap (For those that do remember, just be patient...wouldya?!) When she walks, she walks with a limp since her left leg has a lot of "tone." Tone basically means that she's flexed a lot and doesn't extend or stretch her leg out very well. As a result of this, she puts her left toes down first when she takes a step, instead of the normal "heel to toe" step that you and I take. So the DAFO (which is the name of her brace)that we got was to help this. If you remember, Abby loved the DAFO when we got it! She was walking with more confidence, loved the attention and of course, it was pink! Anywho, she stopped wearing it almost immediately and here is why. One of Abby's therapists was hoping for something a bit different (I'll spare you the details) and told us to go BACK to the doc that prescribed it, tell him her concerns and see about a different one. So we booked an appointment (which took 3 months or so), and in the meantime, we didn't put the brace on her. And get this, the doc said the brace that we have had all along was fine! He agreed with what Abby's therapist was saying, (again...I'll spare you the details) but wanted to stay the course with the brace she has. So we lost about 3 months but the good part about all this was that daddy got to take Abby all by himself to Childrens Hospital in LA. The trip took forever but it was a great Daddy n Abby day. Man she's cute. We had such a good time. And now she loves that she can wear her brace. She has more confidence when she walks and it gives her more stability. In fact, it gets so much attention, Eddie tries to put it on too. It's hilarious.
Now the update with Abby's left hand. This hand is in a semi fist position with her thumb tucked under her fingers most of the time. She does open up her hand when she needs to hold something though, so that's good. For example, she loves to hold a small cup and then pull the straw in and out. Her first step is to get that cup securely into her left hand. If you watch her do this, you'll see her really concentrate on getting that cup into her left hand and making sure she has a good grip. Then she has fun with the straw with her right hand. This is actually pretty good therapy too because her thumb is open. But once she drops that cup, she will most likely tuck her thumb under her fingers. To help with this, Abby has a hand brace to basically pull her thumb open a bit and keep it from tucking under her fingers. I'm anxious to see how this helps keep that thumb open and relaxed all of the time.
When Abby eats she "chipmunks" her food as you remember. By this I mean that all of her food falls over to the left side of her mouth, into her left cheek and it looks like she has a giant gobstopper in there or something. Eventually, Abby would swallow this. But ever since her fundo surgery, Abby has become very afraid to swallow anything. In fact, now she spits the food out. The other issue is that we still can't seem to feed her very much volume into her tummy through her G Tube. Why? Well it seems that Abby's little GI tract does something called "dumping." Her stomach doesn't regulate how fast her food can go down into her small intestines. So what has been happening is that her small intestines have been getting this overflow of food which in turn makes Abby nauseous, causes her to gag and she sweats a lot too. It's terrible. The answer is to add Benafiber to her formula which is a powder and slows everything down. Thankfully this seems to be working, but man....it's been a long road with this. All we want to do is to get our little Abby chunky! I hope this is the answer. As far as getting her to actually eat again and not be afraid to swallow her food, this might be a longer road than anticipated. Swallowing her food causes so much pain for Abby that it is going to be difficult to give her that confidence back.
Eddie loves to break Abby's glasses. She's already had two new pairs so we decided just to invest in two permanent pairs...and one will surely be in the repair shop at all times. And if you thought the first pair was cute, get a load of these babies!
Here's another shot where you can see Abby's brace too. The cute Hurley sweatshirt, the skirt, the striped tights...does Kelly know how to dress our little angel or what?!
Abby wanted some of that action too so she got in after he was done.
Not to be outdone by his sister, Eddie told Abby to scoot over!
Eddie loves to wrestle! Here we are going at it like we do every night when I get home. Playing with him and Abby after work is by far the highlight of my day.
As you all know...Abby is talking up a storm. She is learning and picking up on all kinds of words. Her nephews though, Tristan and Caden have taught her a great one! "Raise the roof!" Her is a clip of her saying that and another one that I have recently taught her..."Yo Momma!"
