And Then One Day...

Recently my Uncle Tim and Aunt Lois spent a few days with us, and during this time Lois made a comment about how sometimes it seems that things aren't changing, nothing is happening, "and then one day" things are different. I look forward to many "one days" in Abbie's near future, and this weekend I got a taste of the joy they will bring.

I have been giving Abbie tastes of food for a long time, but we haven't really been working hard on oral eating for a while. I go through phases with that -- putting a lot of effort into it, seeing minimal progress, then stepping down for a while. This past Saturday I was using baby food carrots just to give her tastes of food with a tongue depressor. After a few minutes I noticed that we were actually going through some food. She was confidently swallowing, and if I helped support her lower lip just a bit, these swallows were very effective. By the end of the day, Abbie had eaten three ounces of food. That may not be much for a voracious toddler, but for a girl who hasn't eaten that much in over two years (since she was decannulated) this was a huge step -- one that she didn't really build up to, but rather just accomplished out of the blue..."and then one day"

That day was a great day for eating because she was very clear, and breathing easily. That hasn't been the story for this week. She's been kind of junky, with more secretions, which makes eating difficult. But, that doesn't mean we haven't been doing it, she just has to work harder and trust herself more.

Along with more congestion, her muscle tone has been much higher this week. It increased to the point that we couldn't put her in her stander on Monday because I couldn't get her ankle to bend enough to get into her standing boots. As the panicky feelings were rising from my stomach to my throat, I remembered that sometimes steps forward look almost exactly like steps backward.

To check this hopeful theory, I tested Abbie's voltage. I'll try to make this understandable...On the front of her body there are six energy points that we keep track of, often called "chakras". When Dr. Tennant was here in February we noted that Abbie would test normal on the forehead and the notch at the top of the sternum, but would then test low or very low from there down. That line of separation between normal and low corresponded to her liver, which still had a lot of healing to do.

As I've written lately, her liver has been hard at work and we are seeing the evidence of that in things like a great decrease in the amount of digestive enzymes she needs. When I tested her chakras yesterday she was normal on her forehead, top of sternum, and then high energy in the middle of her sternum and very high energy at the bottom of her sterum. When I measured below her navel I got the first low energy reading. So, it looks as though the "demarcation line" between normal or high energy and low energy is moving down her body. This is in line with Hering's Law, part of which states that healing occurs from the head down.

When I researched what the new low energy epicenter may correspond to, I smiled with satisfaction at seeing pieces fit together. In the past week we've been having to give Abbie glycerin suppositories occasionally, which is very odd for her. She's also suffered from gas and the skin around her nose is breaking out with little pimples. Well, the parts of the spine that correspond to her low energy center relate to the following symptoms: constipation, gas, skin eruptions...Her body keeps telling me what is going on, and reassuring me that what I see is just part of the healing process. I thank her every day for teaching me so much.