The trip to New York to meet with the plastic surgeons left us with some new information and some new decisions. On the information side are two opposing points of view. One claims Ella’s over growth on her right side is governed by the soft matter, when it grows it stimulates the bone structures to grow along. The other point of view states that Ella’s situation is so rare that we really don’t know what the patter of growth will be. The experts, even the most experienced have only seen half a dozen cases like Ella through their careers, and you can’t base statistics off of that. One point of view that was encouraging was that perhaps (a big one), the mass in Ella’s face is composed mostly of fatty tissue and that it is above the plane where the facial nerve lays. The facial nerve is a big deal. One of the doctors said that ‘without the facial nerve, facial plastic surgery would be a piece of cake’ (not that I could think of anyone who would like that particular cake…). Unfortunately it is there and performing surgery on the face without injuring it is very difficult. So there lies the big dilemma. Do we go for surgery now? Remove the massive part of Ella’s facial overgrowth, maybe stop further bone overgrowth? Risk damage to her facial nerve? That could leave her unable to move, here face and smile. It is very frightening. This is particularly true when you look at her smiling. She does that a lot. It is a big par of her. We have another consultation here next week, we will see if there is some imaging technique that will allow them to tell for sure what the composition of the mass is and where it is compared to the nerve. Along less medical lines… Ella is making a lot of progress. For one, she is vocalizing more and more. Her ‘vocabulary’ is getting richer. She shrieks more, grunts more and tries to take part in the conversation. With her fine motor skills it’s a mixed blessing. Her use of her right hand is becoming much much more fine tuned. This however emphasizes the difference between the right and left hands and makes it all that more dramatic. She is doing nearly nothing with her left hand. We have started taking Ella for Acupuncture. It is in fact Acupressure sessions. David (her acupressurist) explained that in babies the pathways are not yet defined enough to use needles. They use pressure points and magnets and pressure instead. The treatments seem very minor and I only hope they have some effect. I have no experience with it or any particular trust (yet) but I am willing to try it if it contributes to stimulating Ella’s use of her right side. What has remained consistent and if anything, has grown is Ella’s relentless optimism and cheerful mood. It is almost uncanny. When you approach her in the morning while she is in bed waking up, she will greet you with a big smile and looks genuinely happy to be awake. Then at the end of the day when you put her in bed, she can almost not contain herself, as she kicks and laughs happy to be in bed. Almost all experiences between these two events are nearly as joyful (ok, sometimes she does get pissed off when we push her too hard with her exercises). Today we tried something new, we stopped her from using her right hand by putting it into her overall. She was forced to use her left or nothing at all. Nothing at all is what she chose for part of the time, though once in a while she actually did bat at things with her left. It is depressing to see how limited her ability is. Strangely enough, later on in the day she was sitting around, with her little xylophone when she (with no enticement from us) started batting at it with her left! Maybe its is a precursor of things to come Can’t wait.