The month of April 2008

This month has been okay. No dramatic improvements with Ayla. She is still limping quite a bit and the physical therapy is not going well. She cries just about the whole 30 minutes we are there. She will not let me put her down and she will not let the therapist touch her. She is very weary of new people and I do not blame her, she has been through a lot at her young age and I suspect that she is afraid. Her swelling is still there, there may be a little decrease but not much at all. We also had her eyes checked this month. With the type of arthritis that she has, she is at an increased risk for uveitis which is an infection/inflammation of the eye. The only way to check for this is by doing a slit eye exam. I have also been noticing that her eyes have been crossing at times so the Dr. also dilated her eyes and checked for that as well. Of course Ayla threw a fit and we had to hold her down. John was beside himself and had to leave, he does not handle things like this well. Everything was okay, praise God and he said he would see us again in three months for another exam. He also asked me to talk to her and explain to her about the test so that she may be more willing to cooperate the next time. I almost laughed out loud. It has obviously been a long time since he has had a toddler. There is no reasoning with a 20 month old, especially not with Ayla. I am just hoping and praying that she will start to show some type of improvement. I love her so much and it just kills me to see her struggle to walk on a daily basis. I know she looks normal to everyone else, but I see the daily struggles that she endures and sometimes it is just unbearable. Oh yeah, I forgot that we also got fitted for her knee brace a couple of weeks ago, Im sure you can guess how that went. TERRIBLE. She didn't cry, she screamed the ENTIRE time they were making the brace. I know I will never get her to wear this, she is scared to death of it as of right now.. we will see!