Upon Reflection

Firstly, thank you all for the lovely comments, advice and (in many cases) words of wisdom in reference to my 'What if...?' post. I was so touched by the response. When I first started The Future's Rosie I never expected it to reach much beyond family and friends so it still comes as a great surprise to me to have the support of so many – through the good times and the wobbly ones! Having taken the time to reflect I'm pleased to say that your words of support have really helped me bring things back into some sort of perspective again (for now at least).

Which brings me on (rather tenuously) to Rosie's latest achievement of recognising and responding to her own reflection...

Rosie often sits in front of the mirror in our bedroom playing with her best Bud – hours of fun they've spent laughing together, touching hands and generally doing exactly the same things. Then on Saturday morning something dawned on her, she took a baby wipe out of the packet next to her on the floor and began showing it to her friend in the mirror, touching the glass with it at first before eventually placing it on top of her head. She sat there for a moment with a slightly puzzled look on her face, then, rather than reaching out to the mirror to try and grab the wipe from her friend, she reached up removed it from her head, looked at it then placed it back on her head followed by a big belly laugh. We are almost sure this is the moment she discovered that her little friend in the mirror was in fact her own reflection.

Back in January Rosie had a sleep test done to monitor her oxygen saturation levels which are consistently below the level that they need to be when she's asleep. As a result of this test an ear, nose and throat (ENT) appointment at the hospital was arranged for last week. The ENT consultant suggested that the low sat levels are a result of her tonsils being too large. So we are now on a waiting list for an operation to have both her tonsils and adenoids removed. A simple half hour procedure by all accounts. However rather selfishly one of the first things that sprung to mind was whether or not I can face seeing her put to sleep again and put through any ounce of discomfort – it's ridiculous really when I think of all she's been through already but right now the thought of her being in any pain (even for her eventual good health) is still difficult for me to stomach. As I write this it dawns on me that the real reason for my anxiety is having those memories of her heart surgery stirred up again.

Rosie had her first physio appointment with her new therapist last week. Due to staff changes it's been a while since her last appointment and we were hoping to finally get rid of the medieval looking standing contraption which she hasn't ever taken to. In all honesty we haven't perservered with it as we perhaps should have, figuring she wasn't going to progress much if it distressed her. How wrong we were as it appears her leg strength and standing ability has, if anything, dwindled in recent weeks... Lesson learned. So we are now back to putting her in it daily for as long as she'll manage which actually seems less stressful this time and we're hoping to see improvements here soon.