As you can see from the photos, she has a new passion. I had bought a discounted package of riding lessons for her back in December thinking it would be really good for her eventually. Not at the time, since germs and dirty animals that could spread germs would not have been an option...
The week before I bought it, my friend had told me about Equine Therapy and it sounded pretty interesting. So when this deal popped up in my email, for a riding center that actually has equine therapy for people with disabilities, I jumped right on it. Not really for the therapy, but for the knowledge that she loves animals and especially horses. I have read about horses helping people with emotional and physical disabilities. The relationship between human and horse can be really healing. She has been riding once a week now for a couple of months. She is in love. She also made the decision to quit ballet. I knew it was not her passion even though she was a beautiful dancer. I was a bit sad, since ballet has always been my life and she has danced since she was in my tummy. But, I am happy that she has found something that SHE loves.
Another great achievement of hers is that she was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society last week. We attended a lovely night at her school where about 20 other students were inducted as well. I am so proud of her.
Her health has also continued to improve. She has gained 13 pounds since January! That is amazing to me that she was so unhealthily skinny. I remember seeing every bone in her body. Even putting on these 13 pounds makes her still under the 50% mark for her age!
We are down to just once a month at the clinic with Dr. G and will probably being saying goodbye to her soon. It will be a hard goodbye for me. This woman has saved my child and ultimately our whole family and I feel a great attachment and gratitude towards her. She has seen my daughter and myself at our worst and has really been the one to turn our lives around.
The psychiatrist will also be going down to half of her usual dosage of sertraline in the next few months or so. The plan is to have her fully off of her medicine by November which will be a year from when she started. This makes me a bit nervous for fear of any signs of her phobia or OCD coming back. Dr. G has told us in the past that there is a 50/50 chance of it coming back someday. However, we know that help is right around the corner if we ever need it again.
