Good News, Bad News

So, John keeps reminding me that I haven't posted anything in a while. I'll work on getting some pictures posted in the next couple of days. In the meantime, here's a little update.

Bad news: 3 "big" seizures this summer, 2 hospital admissions, finally determining that Joshua's "episodes" are probably complex partial seizures....well over 100 of those in the past several months, being told that he probably has an underlying seizure disorder, starting medication to control the seizures, and he's still not talking.

Good news: We are finally getting some answers & we feel like the neurologists have finally started taking us seriously. There is a good possibility that not talking is related to the seizures, and we are hoping that once the seizures are controlled by the medication that he will start talking. Now, that may be a long process but we are hoping the seizures will be controlled in 3-6 months. We are continuing speech therapy, which the neurologists have told us is the best path at this point.

Joshua has made tons of progress in learning sign language. He probably knows 25 or so signs & has finally started using some of them to communicate (eat, milk, drink, open, please, etc). He knows alot of signs for animals, but I mean, how often do you really need to say "dinosaur"?? It has been really fun to watch him learn so quickly! And, he said "dog" a week or so ago. Belle ran past him & he said "dog". John & I were so excited, but it hasn't happened again. His speech therapist thinks that his problem is that he can't control his vocalization. He knows alot of words & is physically capable of making the sounds, but when he tries, he can't figure out how to do it. She said that we may see words just pop out from time to time....when he isn't thinking about trying to talk. She said with time he should learn how to control it & that is when we will see his speech take off. Now, all of that is speculation at this point based on what she sees when she is with him, but it is the best thing we have to go on at this point. Basically because he is so young, no one wants to diagnose him with anything or rule out any thing.

In other news, we took our house off of the market. We had felt so sure that now was the best time for us to try to move, but with all of Joshua's medical issues this summer, we just don't have peace about that anymore. We have decided to get his seizures under control & then make a decision from there. At least I have one less stress these days....I don't have to continually have the house ready for showings at a moment's notice!