Happy Birthday Big Girl

Yesterday it was The Little Guy’s 9th birthday – today it’s The Big Girl’s 19th birthday. Her Golden birthday (19 on the 19th).

Our Princess

My princess has special needs. She has epilepsy and a developmental delay and a moderate hearing impairment. A few years ago she was also diagnosed with lupus. She’s still in ‘high school’ learning life skills and having her daily routine of riding the bus and seeing and socializing with other people.

We are blessed that our girl’s epilepsy has been under control on medication for several years now and that her lupus has also been controlled. The poor thing used to seize all the time, just not really visibly.

The best analogy I’ve found is to think of listening to a radio that is just on the edge of the listening area. Every so often, static replaces the music. But you know the songs. Your mind can fill in the words and music while the static is there and when the music comes back, you’re right on the mark.

She was pretty much able to continue doing whatever it was she was doing before the seizure. We were blessed that she was not in danger while seizing. She’d pause while walking, just for a second, and then continue on. She never fell, never stabbed herself with a fork while eating.

She can write her name and recognize many written words, but she doesn’t read or write. She only uses a few words and a few signs to help her get her point across. She loves to watch movies and listen to her ‘radio’ – CD’s on the DVD player. A few years ago we bought a combo TV/DVD player and just recently the DVD player portion doesn’t work properly. The tray won’t eject using either the button on the TV or the button on the remote control. So we just bought her a new DVD player to hook up to it. Coincidentally, The Little Guy’s DVD player also would not open and it had to be replaced too.

For her birthday we got her UP, Tinkerbell, and Ice Age III – Dawn of the Dinosaurs. She just loves those Ice Age movies. Back when we got the first one, she called it ‘Elephant’ all the time. Then, when Ice Age – The Meltdown came out, that was ‘Elephant in Water’. We worked with her and got her to say Ice Age and Ice Age Two. Now she’s got her new movie ‘Three’. The Little Guy got GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra and she’ll love that one just as much. She loved it when we saw it at the theater for The Big Guy’s birthday back in August. She also adores the Transformers movies and Bumblebee is her favorite.

She’ll need to be on meds the rest of her life. She’ll need supervision and someone to help her with showering. She can feed herself, but can’t cook. She can dress herself, use the bathroom herself, but she’ll never be a ‘productive’ member of society.

She loves and is loved.

*** As an Amazon Associate, I could get a few pennies if you order one of these movies from Amazon – or if you order anything else while still in the session at Amazon that  came from any of these links. Also, I see that Amazon has a set of all three of the Ice Age movies on Blu-Ray as well. ***