The stander is here!

After much anticipation, Meredith's stander finally arrived yesterday afternoon! She looks great in it. Her legs are straight and she really enjoys being upright. We are so excited to finally have this piece of equipment for her, it should give her a whole new perspective on the world. We'll keep it at daycare during the week and then bring it home with us for the weekends. At daycare it will be great for socialization too. She'll be up at eye level with the other children. We also saw a new doctor yesterday, a Pediatric Physiatrist. I had never heard of a Physiatrist before - they work with lots of special needs children and a whole range of people with rehabilatation needs. Since we were looking for some guidance with braces, orthotics, equipment, etc., this was a great fit. We liked the doctor a lot and left with some good advice and a new toy to play with - knee immobilizers! They keep Meredith's legs straight so we should be able to hold her around the torso and have her put weight on her feet when not in the stander. They are pretty neat and I can't wait to try them. Today won't be the day though, because Meredith has been sick. She vomited last night and this morning and had a couple seizures today as a result of the sickness. We gave her Diastat to stop the seizures about an hour ago and so far, so good. We have used the Diastat 3 other times, each with success. We are so thankful to have a line of defense we can use against these seizures at home instead of having to go to the ER each time. We are averaging approximately one cluster of seizures per month at this point, and usually she has them when an illness is around the corner. The last several months we have been lucky and she's had them on weekends or early enough in the morning so we know ahead of time not to send her to daycare. All in all, we consider these seizures moderately controlled. And in the world of seizures, that's pretty good!