How is time flying by so fast?  Katie is almost 19, crazy.  Here is a pic from this morning, ready for Valentine's Day! 

We are all doing well but I have things to talk about, so will try to update in a few days. 💘

Therasuit Therapy

 Katie went through Therasuit therapy this summer to help with balance, etc... This helps her so much! In each video, Tom the therapist explains a little bit about this type of therapy.  

1 of 3

2 of 3

3 of 3

 Here I am a year and a half since my last post, well... life.  That's to blame.  I don't know if anyone besides my family reads this anyway 😄

We all did eventually get COVID right around Christmas, so we celebrated alone and not feeling too good- just like a bad cold with symptoms that varied daily.  But great Chinese food helped 😋 and I didn't have to cook which is always a plus for everyone.  

Katie is now 17, crazy!  She's doing well and has shot up in height.  I think this may have made her less balanced and she is starting a three week series of Therasuit Therapy today (which she did years ago) so I'll post about that.  It should help her balance and walking.

My last post said we were getting a puppy.  It's so fun having a dog again! He went through training and is such a good boy.  I highly recommend standard poodles! 

Dog

 Yeah, so I 've been terrible at posting since COVID started.  We are all fine and we have all had the vaccine with basically no symptoms.  None of us have had COVID either so that is great. Katie's in school and they wear masks - thankfully she will wear one. I send in eight masks a day and they switch them out since she drools a little bit... 😣 

She just had a week off for winter break and the week before that she was out because of a cold, and a few weeks before that she was out for a week because of allergies.  It's been a rough month! For me mainly, as she was ok watching Mamma Mia, Cinderella, and The Brady Bunch movies all day but I still had to work (from home) and do all the other stuff like laundry, etc... I'm tired.

For the last two months she's had a tongue episode  where it sticks out constantly and no one knows why. No one can figure this out, although I think it's seasonal allergies.  It usually lasts a few weeks and this time it was 2 loooooong months - this drives me crazy! I tried to find the cutest picture of her with her tongue hanging out but I guess that's a little bit ironic, lol! I'm so glad she is finally feeling better and over all of these issues from the last few months.

Tomorrow we get a puppy!  I tried to go the rescue route but the three I tried to get all got adopted before I could get to them.  They want you to bring the whole family in so I'd have to wait until Katie was out of school and then go down there and by then, the dogs were gone. In a day!  But I'm glad that they got adopted.  With Katie I needed to make sure the dog was nice and that they had background on it so we knew it would be a good fit.  Paul wants a non-shedder and that is hard to find at a rescue but two of the three actually were.  So now we are getting this guy!  Not a rescue but hey, I tried!  He comes basically crate trained which is awesome but I haven't had a puppy in like 30 years. Wish me luck! 

school chef

I love this picture and for some reason it reminds me of a Seinfeld episode!  

Katie always has fun at school, even when it involves vegetables. 😋

Masks and allergies

 Well Katie's been back to school full time for awhile now.  I'm not sure who is happier... 

The school is very cautious and she has to wear a mask so I bought some at Ulta and have been sending her in with about 8 a day since she does drool somewhat. One day my sister pointed out that the mask Katie was wearing had naked ladies on them. I was like, "What?!"  They are somewhat abstract and I was beside myself thinking about how many times Katie had worn the naked lady masks to school 😂 I can't believe I didn't notice this!  So we have since gotten some new ones and I use the naked lady ones only when I am in a rush and can't find another.  This picture was at Costco. 

Overall we are pretty good.  Katie has had her tongue sticking out pretty much constantly for probably the past two weeks. I think it's allergies.  We try everything we know of to help this and it seems better when she has allergy medicine, but what a pain! Hopefully it's on it's way out. 👉

Ugh!

 Ugh!  We're hanging in there.  This online school stuff is not easy.  I have to be on with Katie from basically 8 am - 12 pm.  Plus I do all of Paul's data entry and billing 😞 I think I've aged 10 years in a month.  And let's just say Katie has a really good aim when the target is the computer. So, I am looking forward to when this is all over and she can be at school safely and I can have spare time to do fun things like folding laundry and mopping the floors.  I guess it's good we have had no visitors in a while.  Overall we are healthy and safe and thankful that there are good TV shows like Can't Buy Me Love that Katie is interested in - she prefers Patrick Dempsey in his early awkward years. 👌

That's it for now. 

Hello!

Well a few days turned into about 2 months... 😖

In October, Paul and I went to Northwestern University to see Dr. Swanson and his lab.  He showed us one of the mice that he had given Katie's mutation to and when he picked up the mouse it's legs were shaking and it clenched it's hands and feet.  Paul said, "That's what Katie does!" She tends to clench her feet and used to do it with her hands somewhat, too.  Not the shaking part though.

When he picks up these mice their legs shake which is not at all a normal thing for a mouse.  Another thing that is different about these mice is that if you give them some paper a typical mouse will shred it and make a nest.  These mice do not. However, when we got home from that trip Katie got into some paper and spent about an hour tearing it up, lol!  I don't know what that's all about.

It was such a good trip and we are so lucky to have such a great scientist working with us to help Katie.

He said that the hope is that in 5-10 years they may be able to change Katie's mutation using a CRISPR method.  It is how they gave the mice Katie's mutation.  It's not safe on humans yet, but hopefully will be in the near future.  What that means for Katie we are not sure especially since she will be older when this might be able to be used.  But if they can change her mutated gene it probably will help her somehow.  I can only hope! Link: CRISPR
#scienceisawesome

I'm back! Briefly...

Ok, so the bald spots are gone!

I have a lot to say but it may be next week. Just been busy! Here are some cute recent pics:

Halloween 2019

Christmas 2019

Bald spots!

I was giving Katie a bath and washing her hair and noticed two bald spots on top of her head! 👀 YIKES!

They are each about the size of a dime and right next to each other.  Of course I Googled it immediately and freaked out!

I called her naturopath doctor and he said we needed to do blood work. A few days later Katie was going to be at a dentist appointment where she would be under anesthesia, so I got it all scheduled in advance to have her blood drawn then too.  Otherwise it's a fight.  Thank God for this dentist:  Dr. Herro!
He is really so awesome beyond just letting us do blood work while she's "out".  https://www.dentaloncentral.com/

We just saw her primary doctor yesterday and Katie's labs were nothing to be concerned about so that was good news.  The doc says it's tinea capitis which is basically the same thing as athlete's foot, but on the head. A fungal infection.

"Tinea capitis is a disease caused by superficial fungal infection of the skin of the scalp, eyebrows, and eyelashes, with a propensity for attacking hair shafts and follicles The disease is considered to be a form of superficial mycosis or dermatophytosis."

"Ringworm of the scalp is not really a worm, but a fungal infection. It gets the nameringworm because the fungus makes circular marks on the skin, often with flat centers and raised borders. Also called Tinea capitis, this infection affects your scalp and hair shafts, causing small patches of itchy, scaly skin."

Uggghhh!  My kid has ringworm!  I guess it actually sounds worse than it is, maybe that's why the Dr. called it tinea capitis 😆

I am going to pick up the medicine today in 2 hours and as soon as she's home from school - she's getting it.

How in the heck I didn't notice this sooner is beyond me! Her hair is always in a ponytail so that probably didn't help. Poor kid.