Encouragement

I have put off posting about this, unsure of how to handle it. I'll try to be short (yeah, right) and to the point. Ella is pretty delayed in all facets of learning. In an attempt to help her (and us) we visited a developmental pediatrician a few weeks ago. After describing some of the things that she was doing, he suggested IQ tests and an EEG. Back in September (when our van broke down), she started fluttering her eyelids and rolling her eyes around. It was that weekend that we were stranded, she was very stressed out, and we all figured it was just how she was handling the stress of...being without the van? When we got home the fluttering didn't stop, it was accompanied by her losing a few seconds of reality. Our pediatrician wasn't concerned about this, but wanted us to see this developmental pediatrician because of Ella's delays. When we described her symptoms and abilities he shocked us by saying that she may be having seizures and she may be mentally retarded.

Neither of these statements should have been shockers--Ella has febrile seizures and has had all sorts of tests run to figure that out. It's not a big deal, it's something she may grow out of, and we just pay close attention to medicating her while she's sick. It seemed strange to me that she would suddenly just start having seizures throughout the day, but I took her for an EEG. The results came back last week; they were abnormal, she is having seizures. Whoa.

Meanwhile, we were visiting a psychologist to see what's going on in Ella's head as far as development. Before he tested her, he spent an hour going over old tests and talking to Seth and I. He found a series of tests that the school system did several years ago. One of those tests generated an IQ score, the school system never told us about that test that they did. The results back then--Ella had an IQ of 71. Whoa.

It was a discouraging week to say the least. Monday morning we met with the psychologist again, this time prepared for the worst. Praise God he gave us good news, sort of. Ella's tests were low, but not because she is incapable of understanding the tests. She's unable to focus long enough to answer the questions (or in some cases even hear the questions). She's got inattentive type ADHD. Something we never would have thought about, because she is NOT hyperactive. As the doctor started talking about solutions to help her, Seth and I were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Then I blew it and mentioned her recent seizure diagnosis. Evidently, that causes a bit of a problem because most of the meds that treat ADHD can't be taken by people who have seizures.

Okay, we left the office a bit confused, hoping that a neurologist can help us get things straightened out. Last week, with the news of a referral not coming for a few months, I was in the middle of all of that. That was a little bit of relief for me, since I didn't know what was happening with Ella.

Yesterday, we heard that the family ahead of us in line accepted a referral of three siblings. That means we are next...