Hello Cindy,

  CH> Yor are the moset wonderful parents in the world... to do that
    > for your daughter. Bless you ..

    That's very kind of you to say.  I think we're the most fortunate
parents in the world just to have this little girl, especially after Saturday.

    My wife, daughter and I had just arrived at the pediatrician's
office to see what could be done about a respiratory infection that my
daughter was struggling with.  She sat down to play with one of the toys in
the waiting room and moments later slumped off her chair onto the floor.
She's two, so she's always sliding off things, falling down and generally
jumping around.  There was something about the way she went down this time
though that put up a red flag in my head. I walked straight over to her,
scooped her up in my arms and told the receptionist "We need help,
right now!"

    To make a long story short, two ambulance rides and one bewildered
emergency room later my daughter is now in the pediatric intensive care
unit (PICU) of her hospital.  The stroke took away use of her right arm and
leg and also took away her speech.  When her neurologist mentioned that
"speech centres" were effected, I asked whether that meant just
speech or language in general.  "Ah no," he said, "signing
will be impacted too". Even if it were not, it would be difficult with
one arm out of action and the other featuring an I.V. line.

    Instead of typing this post, I should be reading on-line about the
brain, how it works and what the implications are when it isn't able to.
Her receptive language seems somewhat intact: she understands "sit
up" (though of course she needs help to pull that off) and clearly
understood "choose one" (apparently Dora the Explorer trumps
Curious George).  Only time and a small flotilla of therapists will tell
how much function she'll regain.

    It must be a frightening, confusing and frustrating experience to
suffer a stroke.  Subsequent medical tests and treatment are painful and
probably seem quite arbitrary.  She is able to smile though and we even got
her to laugh a few times.  It strikes me there's a powerful lesson there.

- Andy Ball

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