I loaned our minivan to Vickey for their vacation (they needed to seat 6) and got her Volvo station wagon in return, which we took to Philly. Jeremy momentarily forgot that we were sans minivan and he kind of despaired because we need to bring a lot of stuff even though we’d be gone only a few days. But packing a vehicle tightly is one of his favorite things and, of course, we all fit in the station wagon just fine.
We went to Philly to see Eric Marsh at the Rett Clinic and also to see Bob and Katherine and Emy who would happen to be in town. We needed to bring Elka – everyone wanted to meet her – and also, I’m reluctant to ask someone to dog sit as she still has destructive puppy habits. We couldn’t leave her in the car for the duration of the appointment, so I found a dogsitter through rover.com to watch Elka for 4 hours while we were at the appointment and eating lunch afterwards. I feel like I look a little orthodox in this photo while I’m waiting for our dogsitter to show up.
The visit with Eric was great. He has a wonderful bedside manner and Edda really likes him. We are going to start a slow wean off of Keppra. There is a new drug that will go on the market in December/January, so we’ll do a follow up appointment in Feb to get her started on the drug. Dr. Marsh says maybe her repetitive hand motions would quiet, she may have some increased alertness and responsiveness and also some new vocalizations were reported in the trial. We’ll see. I’m semi-excited. There is a side-effect of persistent diarrhea, which could be an issue, but maybe not. Edda is on the constipated side, so that could help us out. We can try for 6 months and see if there is improvement. We had lunch, Jimmy Johns (one of my favorites) and excellent pizza and we picked up Elka from the sitter with a positive report card (no peeing in her apartment, which is what I was worried about) and headed to see our family.
Bob and Katherine are well. We had a nice time together. This is Edda’s set up for bed. This is why we travel heavy.
We went to visit a college classmate of Jeremy who works for a non-profit called Natural Lands – a very nice outing.
We attended a meeting of B&K community group where discussion was held regarding hosting parties in the fall.
It was a beautiful day outside.