MRI Results

This is the email I sent out to some friends and family this morning:

Well, we got some sad news about Oksana today but news that confirmed our suspicions so it is good news for us to know. I am going to do a horrible job of explaining it because I had to ask "What does that mean?" after every other word! Besides that, it was a lengthy conversation so I can't possibly remember everything, but here is my extremely dumbed down version of what I heard. We learned that the damage in her brain in the area that explains the CP is significant. Far more invovled than a typical premie birth resulting in CP. They believe that there was another factor as well, for example, it is possible that mom had blood pressure issues or was ill. There are a variety of possibilities and we will obviously never know what it was that led to the damage. Because of the extent of the damage it also appears that her brain has not developed normally and is "shrunken". She explained that a normal brain looks nice and "fluffy" (which I thought was kind of a funny brain description) but hers does not look like that. She also has damage in other areas of her brain. Some of these areas involve higher level thinking, mood, behavior, stability, etc. This does explain why we are trying so many different things to get her to walk with more stability and none of them are working. It isn't all CP related, some of it is brain related. I was told that based on the MRI Oksana will never develop to her chronological age but never to stop pushing because she could defy the odds. While, of course, I will continue to push her there is also a sense of relief here. Since she came home I've tried so hard to work with her to make her a 5 year old and it just wasn't happening. I can now relax a bit and let Oksana develop to her God given potential without the pressure of reaching a certain age developmentally. To top it all off I was told that once a week all of the neurologists gather together and present their most challenging cases for reveiw by the entire team. Oksana's MRI is being presented today. I didn't know if that should make me feel better or worse!!! So all that to say we should actually have even more information today. After I took time to process all of that all I could do was thank God that she is ours. She is such a blessing to us no matter what.