{"id":2742,"date":"2013-03-29T05:48:14","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T18:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/inthenews\/?p=2742"},"modified":"2015-04-29T13:40:35","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T03:40:35","slug":"a-second-chance-for-sienna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/a-second-chance-for-sienna\/","title":{"rendered":"A second chance for Sienna"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_2745\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2745\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/2013\/03\/29\/a-second-chance-for-sienna\/sienna\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2745\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-2745\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2013\/04\/sienna-210x160.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"160\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2745\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sienna uses facial expressions to communicate her emotions. Photo courtesy of the Herald Sun.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Just before her first birthday Sienna Horton lay in intensive care following a group of unexplained seizures. Parents Lisa and James Horton were told that the white matter in Sienna\u2019s brain was disappearing due to leukodystrophy. They were informed that it was responsible for the breakdown of the nerves used for processing and cognition, and was progressive and untreatable.<\/p>\n<p>At this stage, doctors could not predict how long Lisa and James would have with their little girl.<\/p>\n<p>Lisa and James are now four years on with Sienna still by their side, however the day of the diagnosis is still a painful memory for them.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Horton said that the doctors\u2019 confidence has grown in the last 12 \u2013 18 months following the new finding, and that they are hopeful Sienna will be able to continue learning and growing. \u201cWe just don\u2019t know in what capacity and in what way\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Sienna has been under the care of Director of Neurology, Associate Professor Andrew Kornberg, who has given the Horton family confidence in Sienna\u2019s future. \u201cThe RCH isn\u2019t just about having experts, qualified physicians and surgeons&#8230;It\u2019s about people who understand the conditions and who can provide hope,\u201d says Mr Horton.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Horton expressed his gratitude to the planning, positivity and programs of the neurology department. The Horton family are also able to be linked to future myelin repair clinical trials through the department\u2019s international collaborations.<\/p>\n<p>Focus has now moved onto Sienna\u2019s learning habits \u2013 she has started prep at a mainstream school this year and has recently learnt the process of reading.<\/p>\n<p>Although she is yet to talk in sentences, Sienna is learning to use exaggerated facial expressions to convey different emotions. This repetitive process will allow Sienna to learn it and rechannel it through a different way in the brain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019ll be behind the others, but I think in the long term she\u2019ll be as capable and independent as you or me,\u201d says Mr Horton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sienna Horton\u2019s parents were told that their only daughter suffered from an untreatable condition, however, a second opinion from RCH\u2019s neurology department was more optimistic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7198,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-good-friday-appeal","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2742"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2807,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742\/revisions\/2807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}