Our little Megan continued.....

It has come that time again where I feel like I need to write about our progress on our Megan, I always start planning what I am going to say in my head and sometimes I can drive myself crazy, so better out than in they say!

Megan is doing so well. She started school again with the help of an amazing and special lady we found through social media - never underestimate the power of social media. It took some adjusting but she is finally getting back into the swing of things and our special new member of the family is absolutely amazing.

Megan was able to attend her Cinderella Ball at school and she got dressed up like a princess for the night, although only managing half an hour I am happy that she got to experience the dressing up and feeling like a princess.

Megan dressed up like a Princess for the Cinderella Ball

We were advised that Megan needed to see a Psychologist as it would appear that there was so much going on in our little girls head that we are not trained in helping with. Megan calls her Psychologist the "Happy Feelings Doctor" (we have so many doctors so we may as well name them now) we realized with the help of the Psychologist that Megan had it in her head that unless she had surgery she would not be able to walk again. Poor thing, we don't even think of these things and how much kids actually absorb and take in. So with a little advise we have started a star chart and with the help from her amazing Physio lady we worked together as a team and managed to get Megan off of her crutches. It is now day 3 with no crutches and she is managing. However she seems to have now had a few more seizures since being off the crutches, these are different to the last one's she had though and I can't explain to you why she is having them! It happens when she seems to have been very active for a long time, let's remember that Megan has not really walked or done much exercise in the last 3 months, now suddenly she has been given "permission" to walk and as true Megan style she does not walk, she literally does cartwheels! It is still so confusing as to how she is able to do this when she has been diagnosed with what she has. When Megan's seizures start she will get a lock jaw and then suddenly she will just collapse. The first time this happened it was a little hair raising and we rushed to the hospital in the evening, however now we have discovered that if we just leave her to wriggle around a bit and make her comfortable she will just fall asleep. Obviously we always monitor her when this happens but I suppose it is just a way of her brain shutting down and resting. We see our Neurosurgeon next week so hopefully we can get some more answers on this.

Megan sees the neurosurgeon now on a monthly basis to monitor her. She will be having her MRI's again to see what the syrinx in the spine is doing but if she is not getting worse then we wait a little longer. So a wait and see approach. The longer we can leave it the better. I think when this all started it was so much to take in and we had been given so much advise and had so many opinions so it got so overwhelming. To think that we were going to drive to Bloemfontein and have a shunt put in her spine when we had not found out the cause of the syrinx is mind blowing, yet the Universe works in mysterious ways and I am grateful that we have found the most amazing doctors and caregivers to help us on our journey.

The one thing that I have been wanting to write about and maybe some of you can relate is that when seeing the Psychologist she advised that I needed to have one-on-one dates with each of my girls where on a day of every week they get to spend half an hour with me alone. She also advised that every Saturday is a family day where the girls take turns to choose a little adventure to go on (Megan has gone first and this weekend we go to the crocodile and reptile park). So our whole life has done a 360 degree turn and I have star charts and I have a Fisher Family Schedule in place where we have our set routine so that each and everyone of them get to have a little time with mommy as well as a little adventure on a Saturday. Please note that on our schedule it says that on a Sunday is RESTING DAY!!! So after having discussed this with my mom - I questioned her and said why was this never done with us as kids, well it's simple you see......I grew up in the 80's and 90's, so there were no electronic devices or a million channels to watch on TV, in fact the TV went off at midnight and that funny round image came on and that was that - TV done! I remember walking to the tearoom with my brother and buying chappies for 2c. I remember having lots of friends in the hood and playing with them down by the river catching tadpoles. I remember picking berries off the tree and eating them until our tummies hurt. We would make forts in the neighbors garden with sticks and leaves. Riding bicycles without helmets and knee pads and elbow pads, the list is endless and I could go on forever and I am sure you will think of some while I am writing this, maybe I am bringing back some wonderful memories! Yes we got hurt, but we survived. Yes we drank water from the hosepipe but we survived. Yes we shared a fizzy drink with our friends and we were not infected with awful diseases, we did survive. We dug around in dirt and the germs did not kill us. We had it so good as kids that there was no time for Psychologists. We hardly heard of a kid with ADD or ADHD, gosh there are so many of these labelled problems that kids have these days and it's flipping scary.

So I think as parents today we have to face the facts that life has changed, we have to learn to adapt to this new lifestyle and remember the good old days where fizzy drinks, tap water, sweets and running free in the streets was a luxury, even though we may not have thought it then. I will accept that I now need to have those one-on-one dates with my daughters. I will accept that tap water is not healthy to drink now. We have changed our way of eating where there is hardly any sugar consumed in the house and a lot of veggies a fruit instead of junk food. However I have rules, my girls can play in the dirt, they can run around the garden, we will go on adventures and they must make new friends. We do have technology in our house and I hate the fact that there is kids YouTube where they watch other kids opening presents! I do however have a rule that tech time is between 3pm - 5pm and in between they need to play and use their imaginations, even if they complain they are so bored. I will admit that the star chart is working out so well so far and a little bribery is amazing when I can threaten them that they will not get a star for bad behavior - almost like when it's Christmas time and you threaten that Father Christmas is not going to bring presents unless they go to bed and behave and stop fighting. So I am going to give this modern day parenting a try to a certain degree - I still have my rules. Let's see how it goes.

As for our little Megan, positive thoughts and positive vibes all the way. She is such a determined and strong little girl and already we have come a long way with her progress.