medical updates

Since I know some of you are always wanting to find out what's going on with my kid's medical issues here is a quick update:
Mikayla- had an EMG which is a nerve-connectivity test done by inserting needles into the muscle and sending an electric signal to see if the muscles are getting the signals from the brain.  Everything looks good there, meaning there isn't any nerve damage (except bi-lateral damage to her carple tunnel nerve which is probably what is making fine motor skills so delayed) so the next step is the test the muscle.  We did that last week by taking a muscle biopsy (an orthopedic surgeon made a 2" incision in her thigh nearly to the bone and cut out a piece for testing) and are awaiting the results.  They told us it would be a week-10 days for results so we will hopefully hear something any day.  They are testing for degenerative muscle disease as well as mitochondrial disease and we will see if that gives us any more clues.  She is recovered from her surgery now the proud owner of a narly scar on her left leg.
Carter- We read THE book on the ketogenic diet and the research Johns Hopkins has done regarding it and met with the dietician and nurse practitioner at PCMC that make up the Keto team there.  They sent us home with some sample menus and a food preferences/diet log to fill out.  Its a pretty hard-core diet so we not taking the decision lightly.  In the mean time we have increased his medication to the maximum dosage and the neurologist is considering adding a 3rd medication to his regimen, something we aren't too keen on doing.  So far he is adjusting to the medication well and tolerating with few side effects, in fact some days he's his old cheerful self.  We also continue to take him to the chiropractor (originally every day, now every other) and that seems to corelate with his seizure activity.  On days when he has held his previous adjustment well he has few to no seizures, on days when he is completely out of alignment he has more seizures.  We can't yet tell if the seizures cause the misalignments (injury from falling and such) or if the misalignment causes the seizures.  However because there does seem to be a connection we will continue to persue it.  Carter has good days and bad days, but we are grateful that lately it seems more good than bad.  He's had stitches twice and needed his rescue meds more than I am comfortable with but we are loving the 2-6 day stretches of seizure-free time we are having.  At this point we have to hurry up and wait to see what the next step is going to be but we have set things in motion to continue to move forward.
As always, thank you so much for the prayers and positive energy you are sending our way.  We know sometimes we can get a little myopic and self-centered but we really appreciate all the wonderful family and friends in our lives who are there to buoy us up and help in anyway they can--some days that is the only thing that keeps us sane.  We love all of you!  God bless!