Back....

Just a quick 'fly by' post. We're back after 10 days in BC and a visit to the Lyme specialist and also recovering from a couple of pretty bad weeks. Xian had a particularly bad bacterial 'die off' period that also coincided with her developing extreme hyperactivity/impulsiveness. (The Lyme specialist figures those symptoms are signs that her brain is recovering, and it is easing off gradually). The good piece is that her speech is coming back, although not quite how I'd anticipated. Not sure why, but I just figured it would 'come back' since she did maintain the one and two word sentences. Her speech is a bit like a stroke victim--a bit slurred at times and with what sounds sort of like an accent, using different stresses on words than she used to. She's asking, "What's ___ mean?" or "What's that?" and even the occasional why question. She's also been talking about longer term memories quite a lot, sometimes it's surprising what she comes out with. In Victoria she said she had a very bad dream---she mentioned "the chalk dream" (the name of a particularly bad nightmare she had when she was four) and has also spoken about some of the details from the original dream. But, what she seems to be trying to say is that this whole experiences is one big "Chalk dream" with Rachel and I in it, and other familiar people. So, maybe she does have a sort of memory of everything that's gone on, but is fitting it into a 'nightmare' category.

The Lyme doctor was quite impressed with Xian's recovery and seems to think that she's on the verge of a big leap forward (crossing fingers). She does think that she also has another coinfection, bartonella, which would explain the strange rashes she's had since early in her illness, and apparently is also a cause of mood swings, rages, and the sort of emotional/behavioural symptoms she's had. So, we'll add one more medication for a month, to the regimen, plus Nystatin to help deal with possible yeast growth with all the antibiotics.

Xian's attending her first day of kindergarten---and was quite happy to push me out the door (a ritual we used to use to help get her to separate when she was little, in daycare). Tomorrow she's starting daycare for a few hours, but no kindy as they are doing gradual entry with half the group attending the first two days. Crossing fingers all has gone well.