Little Nora is not so little anymore. In June we celebrated her 9th birthday. We also celebrated by updating Nora’s epilepsy story to tell the story all the way to seizure freedom, so please take a look: Nora’s Epilepsy Story
She is healthy and doing well. In a few weeks she will head off with her brother to a 2-week Norwegian culture camp on the Oregon coast. This would have been unthinkable until only the last year or two. I’m a bit apprehensive, but she should be fine. We’ll send some snacks and meals for her, and trust that she’ll make good food choices.
For her birthday cake we enjoyed a delicious cake of Christy’s creation. It was the Chocolate Poundcake recipe, made into full double-layer cake instead of cupcakes. Everyone had a slice. The frosting was cream cheese whipped with a bit of honey and half-n-half to thin it. She specifically requested a pool of chocolate and a strawberry on the top, so we went all out with drizzling melted dark chocolate and cutting strawberries lengthwise to make hearts. For presents she was ecstatic to receive a Hermione wand (from Harry Potter) and a flute.
Nora is healthy and independent. Many keto kids fall behind on their growth, but at her yearly well-child check up she was holding steady at the 50th percentile for height, which is where she has been pretty much her whole life, and 37th percentile for weigh, so she looks long and lean. Maintaining a low-sugar diet seems good for her health overall, as she almost never gets a cold or flu. She wants to be a children’s author when she grows up, with a side-job as a substitute teacher when she is between books. She does have a flair for language and is writing Harry Potter fan fiction (no spoilers).
I don’t worry about her so much anymore, at least with regards to seizures. Well, I don’t worry perhaps, but I do still think about it from time to time. Once or twice a week when I’m at work I’ll wonder what she’s doing and if she is OK. I’ll still imagine that the phone might ring and it will be from her school. But then that doesn’t happen and I take a breath.
Keep going Nora. And Happy Birthday!
