Anya is doing great (knock on wood). She has had several good days in a row now and is gaining weight again. The 'good days' are not only good for the obvious reasons of her being happier but good because we can offer physical, visual and other therapy to help stimulate brain function and development. When she is sick she is so lethargic and 'out of it' that there is really nothing we can do and it usually takes a day or so to recover. These days missed are so valuable. Fortunately she's not regressing during these sick spells but still, an infant should be making progress everyday. So developmental stagnation is almost just as bad.
Every slight advancement she has nearly brings tears to our eyes. Although I know we don't do it nearly enough, we try to work on her visual sensory by going in to a dark room (bathroom w/ towel covering light under the door) and using a small flashlight we try to get her to track the light or at least just look at it a bit. We turn it on for 30sec, then off, then move it to a new location and turn it on again for 30 seconds and see if she can locate it in her peripheral vision and turn towards it. She is far from good at this but she sometimes does get it with a long delay of about 20 seconds. The other day we had her holding a pen that had a small Lava-Lamp built into the end. I think this worked really well as it gave her direct feedback from her own hand movements without surrounding distraction. She seemed to do great with it. She definetly had INTREST which is exactly what she needs and lacks.
Something seems to be 'sparking' in her brain and that is absolutely huge!!
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