Since late February and after the VNS implant, life for Hayley has been somewhat unpredictable.  She did recover from the VNS surgery with flying colours.  She had her first seizure 7 days after the implant and the day after her stitches were out.  The  generator hadn't even been activated yet.  March, April and May resulted in a lot of seizures however they were significantly shorter than before the VNS.  Her longest seizure before the VNS was upwards of 5 hours, the longest now was 45 minutes.  June and July seemed to level off and she returned to having approximately 1 seizure per month and without a trip to Children's and a night at the ICU.  We decided in August to venture up to the Bay area for a few days.  She did great and had a fantastic time!  No seizures at all... until we returned.  She had an hour long one the night we returned and she ended up at Children's for a couple of hours.  It's too soon to tell how effective the VNS is yet, but at least her trips to the hospital have been cut down and the duration of her seizures have decreased which is the best case scenario we were hoping for.  As for an upcoming milestone, she has started kindergarten and she couldn't be more excited. Let's hope things go well.