The Return of the Toy

Sarah and I have been debating 'the toy' as of late. As you may recall, we had to take Mira's toy from her about a year ago, as it was provoking relentless seizures every time it was in front of her. We felt terrible having to keep it from her, as it is the only toy she has consistently interacted with, and the fact that she had such a long history with it. Unfortunately, it slowly became a seizure trigger for her late last year, to the point it was directly causing her to erupt into a tonic-clonic the final 3 or 4 times we tried it. We have been talking about giving it back to her for the past few weeks, simply because we think she is really bored around the house. While she hasn't been in an irritable mood lately (the past 2 days being an exception because she is congested and has a fever) we felt that her options for entertainment are very limited, especially with the weather being so bad outside. It's currently 7 degrees, snowing, and the temperature is supposed to dip down to -3 degrees tonight. Obviously, going for a walk outdoors isn't an option and with Christmas vacation just around the corner, it inevitably is going to struggle finding things for Mira to do around the house. Thus, we tried the toy this afternoon, after a solid year of not having it in front of her.

Watching her like a hawk, we strapped it on her easel, slid the toy in front of her, and turned it on. It was like she had never missed a beat with it. She immediately grabbed the corner 'bulb', started smacking it with her palm, and pressed her face right up into it. Now that she has her glasses, hopefully she can actually focus on it much more easily. For the first few minutes, she would not take her eyes off of it. Her mouth was wide open, her expression (pics above) was priceless. She interacted consistently with it for a solid 20-30 minutes and didn't have so much as a twitch. No eye-fluttering, no seizures, no myoclonics. We watched her the entire time. It was a huge relief, but it certainly doesn't mean she won't have one from it in the future. This was only the first reintroduction - we put it in front of her again late this afternoon and she was equally enthusiastic about it, although she became bored after 20 or 30 minutes, and tried to shove it off her easel. Just like old times.

Needless to say, we are going to take this slow, as Sarah and I have some trepidation about it still. It makes us nervous with her in front of it, knowing what she went through late last year with it. Unfortunately, since last year, another one of the toys stopped working, so we are down to our last functioning toy. We are going to need to be on the lookout for a backup. If anyone spots one on Ebay or anywhere, please let me know!