the results are in

and this year's best female video goes to...

ok. just kidding.

i heard from ryan's neurologist yesterday evening and she gave me the results from his MRI. we got a good report—better than what was originally suspected!

ryan did not have a stroke at birth, nor does he have a cyst on his brain. however the MRI did show an abnormality on one side of his brain. dr. h said that he has a developmental abnormality in which one side of his brain didn't develop all the way and is therefore behind. now i'm not sure if this is referring to his brain development when he was inside the womb or after he was born. if his brain didn't fully develop inside the womb i guess it kind of explains the "something" on his CT scan at birth.

this is something that may or may not be genetic. [insert erin is abnormal jokes here.] we could possibly get a blood test done on him and see a geneticist, but the only reason it would be recommended that we find out is the fact that our future kids may or may not have a similar problem. which would mean that if i got pregnant the doctors would probably want to do tests to see if there was anything wrong with my baby and to give me "options." sorry, but if we have more children, i'm not going to deny my child a chance at life because he or she may have a developmental abnormality!!!!

ok. thanks for letting me rant there!

back to ry: dr. h also told me that he's at a higher risk for seizures and if we notice any symptoms like staring or twitching that he'll need to be seen again and have an EEG. again, some unknowns—i don't know if he's at a higher risk because of his brain abnormality or because he's already had a febrile seizure.

there are some questions we don't and probably won't have the answers to—dr. h isn't sure how this will affect him in life. she doesn't know if the one side of his brain will always be developmentally behind or if, with therapy, he will be able to develop that side of his brain more and catch up.

with all that said typed, our plan of action is to get ryan into therapy to develop his motor skills on the right side of his body. he'll have physical and occupational therapy starting a week from thursday. from what we can tell right now, ryan's delays seem to be mainly with his motor skills. intellectually he's very smart. he talks up a two-year-old storm, loves to sing, knows his abc's, and can count to 10.

other than therapy, there is nothing else that needs to be done with him right now. if we so choose, we can have a follow up appointment with dr. h to go over the results and see the mri. but as for right now i don't think that will be necessary.

thank you all so much for your prayers! all your sweet and caring comments were greatly appreciated! now go celebrate the good results with some ice cream!