Best Christmas Present

These images do not define our daughter but rather hopefully mark the beginning of some closure to uneasy times. Mary has been doing well for over 14 months, ever since we found the right medication. She has been improving with physical therapy and is stronger every day. She is and always has been a sweet girl. She always smiles, or is shrugging her shoulders, talking while pointing her finger in the air, singing, pretending to be a ballerina, wearing pink, and/or donning her sunglasses. She is great in every way.
The day before leaving for OKC we had a complete physical at her neurologist. The purpose was to obtain the medical green light for ramping down and eliminating her medication. The 45 minute EEG test required that we sleep deprive her, limiting her sleep to 4-6 hours before the morning apointment. I think we suffered more in that task than she did. Despite another patient's very violent temper tantrum happening next door, Mary was the model patient much to our surprise. She took it all in stride and the nurse was really great with her. She told Mary that she was getting rainbow hair as she glued the electrodes and colored wires to her head. Before she wrapped her head in gauze to keep the wires in place, she was given a mirror to gawk over her "pretty hair". She thought it was great. She hugged Mickey and played with her baby like it was an every day nap. The goal of the test was to instigate abnormal responses and/or cause a seizure. She was asked to perform simple tasks, and stare into moving lights, continuous lights, and strobe lights. She then asked her to fall asleep so they could get 15 minutes of data while she was asleep. Who would have thought that after one verse of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star she would be in a deep sleep. Jane and I couldn't make eye contact because we didn't believe it. Even after we were told to forcibly wake her up, she barely fussed. They were able to get more than 45 minutes of good data and even the nurse was a little surprisd for a two year old patient.Later in the morning we met with the neurologist and were told that they were unable to detect any abnormalities. Great news! It is now up to us when and if we want to eliminate mediciations. We hope to do this in March during spring break so her preschool teachers don't have to deal with anything unexpected. We are very blessed indeed.