Meghan has been a busy little girl.  She has been working hard at therapy and we are seeing progress.  She is making the most progress with fine motor skills and speech.  She LOVES to learn and she picks up on things very quickly.  Gross motor is still a big struggle, but she continues to work hard!!  She has spent the last month going through lots of testing with all of her therapists.  Her therapists asked us to take a tour of the ECSE (special ed) preschool through the public school system.  We had our tour a couple weeks ago.  There is a good chance that Meghan will begin preschool in September, depending on how she scores from the tests she's had over the past few weeks.  The classroom can have up to 8 kids and there are 2-4 para's in the classroom on a given day.  Preschool will be 4 days a week, from 7:45-10:45ish.  While she is at preschool, she will still receive all of her therapies she is currently receiving.  The only difference is Meghan will have therapy while at school, instead of at our house. We were very impressed with the preschool room, the teacher and the para's.  The room is very structured and everyone gets very involved.  While we were there, Meghan got to participate in a few things, too!  It was so cute watching her!  We will find out how she scored on her tests and we will work on transitioning Meghan from an IFSP plan to an IEP plan on April 9.  This meeting will be with all of Meg's therapists, a developmental specialist and the special ed preschool teacher.

She also had a follow up MRI a few weeks ago.  We met with her neurosurgeon after the MRI.  She was unsedated for this MRI and it was only 5 minutes long.  I was able to go in the MRI room with her and rub her feet.  They put a mirror above Meghan so that she could see that I was there.  I think that really helped her.  By the end of the MRI she wasn't crying anymore.  I am so proud of how far she has come with being okay with doctors and procedures being done on her.  A year ago, we couldn't even walk into a doctor office without her crying hysterically.  Her MRI results were essentially good.  Her neurosurgeon said her shunt was overdraining, which caused her ventricles to become too small in size.  Ventricles that are too big aren't good, and ventricles that are too small aren't good either as they can become slits.  Meg's NS said Meghan's weren't quite slits, but close.  So, he turned up the setting on her shunt.  This is done by putting a special magnet over her shunt valve and he can adjust the shunt setting by turning the magnet.  It takes just a few seconds to do and it doesn't hurt.  The hope is that by changing the setting, that the fluid will increase in her ventricles.  He said ventricles become too small due to overdraining, or because there is a blockage somewhere along the shunt system (again, Meghan's was due to overdrainage).  We just love her neurosurgeon.  When we first met him almost 2 years ago, he was very serious and we couldn't get a smile out of him.  Now, he walks in the room and greets Meghan and talks away with her.  He talked to us about having a couple things done down the road.  Meghan has had a change in her sleep pattern lately and is up often throughout the night.  If this continues, he would like to have a sleep study performed on Meghan.  He would also like Meghan to have neuropsychologic testing done within the next year to determine Meghan's particular learning profile.  As far as her Chiari malformation goes, at the moment it is stable, but features of Chiari are again noted on this MRI.  That is a little disheartening, BUT, we know what to watch for neurologically and we will just take it as it all comes.   Her next MRI will be in 3-6 months. She will be sedated for this MRI and it will be of her entire brain and spinal cord.  These MRI's usually last 1.5 to 2 hours.  She will also have her skin biopsy performed after the MRI while she is still sedated.  Next month she will have her ultra sound and will meet with the Endocrinologist again.