Botox Baby

Romy Raye had her first Botox treatment today!!! We met with the neurologist this morning and talked for a while about the various treatments available for Romy's specific type of CP and what to expect in the future. I figure it'd be good to tell you guys a bit about Romy's CP and what it means for her future. Of course every kid is different and CP can affect kids differently so we won't 100 percent know what to expect from Romy until she can verbally tell us what feels right and what doesn't, but we can roughly gauge it.

The type she has is called spastic (meaning stiffness) diplegia ("di" for 2, "plegia" meaning a form of paralysis) this means that her legs are the main parts that are affected. Her arms do seem to have some involvement but at a lesser degree and we're pretty sure she'll have near if not full use of her arms. At times it can be painful, but it's nothing that can't be managed with massage or medicine. In the next year or so she'll get her legs and ankles braced for periods of time, maybe even some casting. Then, when she's between the ages of 4-7 she'll have surgery.

Nobody is 100 percent sure what directly caused this, although many extreme preemies end up being diagnosed with this specific type of CP. There is no cure, but there's a ton of treatment and therapy options available to help her live as comfortably as possible. All together the outlook is great and her future, just as bright! In fact her neurologist believes she'll be up and walking sometime within the next year! Hopefully he's right. She got four infections today, all in her legs. She cried a bit but it wasn't so bad. We should see a change within 3 days, it will peak around 6 weeks and be gone by 3 months. She'll continue getting them at gradually higher dosages until her body eventually builds up an immunity and it stops working for her (many many years from now). The whole point of botox is to prevent her muscles contracting permanently, which will leave her legs deformed and to give her time in between shots to strengthen her ability to use those muscles so she can reach her full potential. I took a pre-botox video, I'll take another in 3 days and then again in 6 weeks so we can all compare the changes.

Oh and of course, what's a post without pictures???