Alison had spina bifida clinic today. It was a rather unremarkable appointment, and we like them that way. Her doctor continues to be thrilled with her progress. A recent discussion on our e-mail list prompted us to ask some questions about TES therapy and if the doctor felt it might be of any benefit to Alison. He was very open to the idea of trying it, so much so that he was ready to write us a script for it today if we wanted it. There are no guarantees that it will do anything at all, and we definitely don't want to exacerbate her intoeing, so we're not going to rush into it at the moment. We're going to take some time to talk to Alison's pt about it and see what she thinks, as well as see if they do it at the hospital or anyplace else around here.

While checking out the valve of her shunt, the doctor did make an interesting comment. He said that he wondered, based on her function level, if her shunt was even still working/doing anything. That's the first time we've ever had anyone say anything about a correlation between function level and whether or not there is a pressure problem. Even if the shunt is not actually doing anything, it wouldn't be taken out. We know from Dr. Barr that they've found that taking them out disrupts whatever "fix" the body has come up with and they end up needing to put a new shunt in, so whether it's doing anything or not doesn't change the fact that she will have it forever.

All in all, it was a very satisfactory appointment.