Raquel has been really great these past few days. It seems as though she is finally adjusting to the Depakote. Her balance is improving and she's not nearly as clumsy. And she continues to babble more and more. Today, I swear she was singing along to Bob Marley...
One thing I've been doing differently is giving her the morning dose a couple hours later than I was typically giving it to her. This allows her to have more food in her stomach - breakfast plus a snack - and she hasn't been "crashing" as much, or as severe. It's really important that she has more solid food in her tummy before taking the medicine.
I've also been reading up on the side effects of Depakote, the main ones being constipation, headaches, dizziness, nausea, and drowsiness. Good times. So I've been trying to be a bit more proactive during her difficult moments. Does she have a headache? Is she tired or does she just need to lay down for a few minutes and rest? She'll now tell me - eventually - if she has a headache by either saying "yes" when I ask the question or she says "headache!" when I ask what is wrong. Both of the girls have been eating tons of watermelon, which is a great way to keep fluids in check, especially during the heatwave(s) we've been having out here.
Yesterday, we had a really great time at the beach. We haven't taken Raquel for many, many months because of it being a flipping nightmare the last time we took her. But Gabby has been begging and pleading so we finally agreed, with the deal being we'd only go for a short while. The waves were pretty big so Gabby couldn't go out as far as she'd like, but besides that drama, we had a lot of fun. Raquel absolutely LOVED the ocean this time. We jumped her over waves, and during the break between sets, she'd sit on the sand and just splash and splash around until the tide came back up. She was not even the slightest bit afraid, even when the water would go back down and make you feel a little wobbly on your feet.
After playing for over an hour, Mike took her to the shower to get her rinsed off, and once I changed her into some clean clothes, she became really content and mellow and it was at that point that I wished we would have come prepared to stay longer. But there's always next time.
Looking forward to the start of a positive week!
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