I am all over the place lately. I just can't seem to catch up on the blog. Every time I get a chance to write a post I think of 4 more posts I should write!
Before we went to Philadelphia James and Elliot and I headed to Rochester for another check-up for James' cochlear implant. Everything was good and he improved on their little questionnaire. He's around the hearing ability of a 9 month old. So it's great that we're still seeing improvement. As with all things with James we aren't completely sure where he is because he can't always tell us! We'll go back for another visit in August before school starts.
School has since ended and started again for James. The last day of school was so very bittersweet. Eagles Education Center has been pretty good to/for James. The teachers and kids all love James and they all know him! They love to help him and talk to him and give him hugs! It's even more fun to see his classmates out and about in town! They spot him right away and run right over. That sure makes a momma feel good. The staff at Eagles has been amazing over the past 2 years. Everyone from the secretary, to the principle to the therapists and paras love him. It was pretty fun to drop him off and pick him up every day and have soo many people talk to him and get excited for him to be there. The therapists and his teachers have seen the amazing potential in James. They want to see that potential reached and went above and beyond to connect with his future teachers for next year. We were very sad to say good bye to Eagles Education Center. James started summer school a couple of weeks ago at the Lodoen Center in West Fargo. I had a mini-panic attack about sending him that morning. I was worried. All new teachers. They don't know James-he doesn't know them. I was very hesitant, but of course I got a good report and James had a good week at school. Now he's off for 3 weeks and will go back for 2 more weeks.
We're gearing up for our trip to Tennessee and Florida in a couple of weeks. It actually worked out pretty fabulous. My cousing Troy is getting married in TN and the dates are perfect for us to stop by the wedding on our way to FL for our next ABR session! Andy will get his first ABR training and I'm pretty excited to have 2 of us to work on James. It gets pretty hectic when I try to do all the day time things that have to be done and ABR, especially when James is in school 1/2 days. Andy will be taking over the majority of ABR in the fall when James starts full days at school. I'm not really looking forward to Kindergarten. James will be gone all day and I'll barely get to see him. Elliot is also going to be starting PreSchool in the fall. Whatever will I do with my time?! I'm sure that there will always be something to do.
We are settling pretty nicely into our new house. We love all the space we have! Our backyard is fenced and has a playgroud, so Elliot is always wanting to go outside to swing. We've met the neighbors to our East and they have 2 little girls Elliot's age and a baby. Elliot spots the girls outside and he immediately has to go out to play with them. It's great for him to have someone close by to play with (besides mom and dad).
Unfortunately our basement has been getting wet in our family room. It's been very frustrating as no-one ha ever had moisture problems in that house before. 4 times now we've had to stay up late and vaccuum all the water up, pull the carpet back and get it all dried out. We're having someone come out to look and see what the problem sometime in th next week. Let's pray that its not too expensive.
We've been working on getting James a swing for the swingset and a ramp into the house. It's a process as always but it's going well and hopefully we'll get them before the end of summer.
Showing posts with label Cochlear Implant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cochlear Implant. Show all posts
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Monday, February 4, 2013
Cochlear Check-up
Last week on Monday James, Elliot and I went to Rochester for a check-up for James' cochlear implant. Sunday we drove down to Rochester in some not so great weather. It rained all the way until the Twin Citites and once we got there it turned to slush and snow making for some pretty bad roads. Monday morning our appointment was scheduled for 9am but had to be pushed back a little because one of our normal audiologists was sick. We didn't get pushed too far back though :). They checked out his device to make sure it was working correctly and checked his maps. Over the past 3 months I actually didn't change any of James' programs/growing programs. I was really hesitant to do this because he was still crying a fair amount when we put the implant on in the morning. I wasn't willing to increase the sound if he was giving me negative reactions. But I found out that instead of putting the device on his head and then turning it on, I should have been turning the device on and waiting a few seconds before placing the microphone piece on his head. oops :( Lesson learned. I've slowly been turning up his volume in program 1 now that I've figured that out and haven't had a negative reaction since. They people we work with at Mayo are so awesome. They are very tolerant of our ever busy Elliot and help to keep him busy with toys. When it comes time to put James in the sound booth, James, myself and Alice (one of the audiologists) go into the soundbooth and the other audiologist (the one who was sick this time-Melissa) and Elliot head into the control room and they keep Elliot busy in there with some quiet toys. This time when we put James into the sound booth he did really well. He is responding to voices wonderfully and now even at a softer level than before! Yay! He's responding to some sounds but not as much as voices-but they tell that that's typical. Our new project to work on is now tying sounds to objects-like saying cow and then "moo" to connect the two of them-using a picture always helps with James too.
We also did a little questionairre that we had done before James was implanted. I don't remember doing it, but his score at that time was a 2-3. The score is pretty simple. They ask questions and each question you answer 'yes' to, adds a point. He's now scoring 7-8 which is right on track with a 3 month old. I was pretty happy about that since he's had it for 3 months. But then they showed me what other kids are doing after they're implanted and they score between 13-33. That was a little disheartening, but then I realized that some of these are kids implanted at a much younger age, they don't have cerebral palsy and they have much more consistent use than James does. That's something we'll have to work on. Part of James' inconsistent use comes from us doing ABR. Anytime James is lying on his left side-the implant won't stay on. So any of this ABR exercises that require him on his left are a no-go for the implant. He also doesn't keep it on anytime he's in the car or on the bus. James also for some reason takes his bottle better if we prop it for him while he's lying on his side on the couch-well just the way our living room is laid out right now this puts James laying on his left side to see the tv while he eats-and you guessed it, that means no implant while he's eating or if he's just lying on the couch. When we get James up and into his new Special Tomato chair, he does ok with keeping the implant on-but he can also manage to knock it off lots too. If you remember the microphone piece attaches to his head with a magnet and he's gotten pretty good at knocking it off on purpose, but sometimes it's just by accident and the way he moves his body. We've found a headband that came with his giant box of supplies that helps keep microphone on, and that has helped a tremendous amount-especially at school. So, I guess all in all, it was pretty successful, but mom and dad and James have lots of work to do.
Our latest family development-WE BOUGHT A HOUSE! We are super excited to be getting out of the apartment. It's not a terrible apartment, but apartment living doesn't exactly agree with us, or fit us. We are moving into a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom home in West Fargo with a heated garage, fenced in big backyard with a swingset, open floorplan, lots of storage and a hot tub. We are super excited and I think the kids will like all the room they'll have to play-inside and outside.We close on March 12-and we'll be super busy right up until then. In February James and I are heading back to Montreal for some more ABR training, I'll be going on my scrapbooking trip with my friends from WI, and of course we'll be busy working and going to appointments and packing our apartment up! I apologize in advance in case I don't keep you all updated! Hopefully you'll see and update about ABR and another with pictures of the new house!
We also did a little questionairre that we had done before James was implanted. I don't remember doing it, but his score at that time was a 2-3. The score is pretty simple. They ask questions and each question you answer 'yes' to, adds a point. He's now scoring 7-8 which is right on track with a 3 month old. I was pretty happy about that since he's had it for 3 months. But then they showed me what other kids are doing after they're implanted and they score between 13-33. That was a little disheartening, but then I realized that some of these are kids implanted at a much younger age, they don't have cerebral palsy and they have much more consistent use than James does. That's something we'll have to work on. Part of James' inconsistent use comes from us doing ABR. Anytime James is lying on his left side-the implant won't stay on. So any of this ABR exercises that require him on his left are a no-go for the implant. He also doesn't keep it on anytime he's in the car or on the bus. James also for some reason takes his bottle better if we prop it for him while he's lying on his side on the couch-well just the way our living room is laid out right now this puts James laying on his left side to see the tv while he eats-and you guessed it, that means no implant while he's eating or if he's just lying on the couch. When we get James up and into his new Special Tomato chair, he does ok with keeping the implant on-but he can also manage to knock it off lots too. If you remember the microphone piece attaches to his head with a magnet and he's gotten pretty good at knocking it off on purpose, but sometimes it's just by accident and the way he moves his body. We've found a headband that came with his giant box of supplies that helps keep microphone on, and that has helped a tremendous amount-especially at school. So, I guess all in all, it was pretty successful, but mom and dad and James have lots of work to do.
Our latest family development-WE BOUGHT A HOUSE! We are super excited to be getting out of the apartment. It's not a terrible apartment, but apartment living doesn't exactly agree with us, or fit us. We are moving into a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom home in West Fargo with a heated garage, fenced in big backyard with a swingset, open floorplan, lots of storage and a hot tub. We are super excited and I think the kids will like all the room they'll have to play-inside and outside.We close on March 12-and we'll be super busy right up until then. In February James and I are heading back to Montreal for some more ABR training, I'll be going on my scrapbooking trip with my friends from WI, and of course we'll be busy working and going to appointments and packing our apartment up! I apologize in advance in case I don't keep you all updated! Hopefully you'll see and update about ABR and another with pictures of the new house!
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| Watching Wrestling-He LOVES it! |
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| Bedtime at the hotel in Rochester |
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| Cheese! |
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| Cheering for the Vikings-somebody has to |
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| Sitting in his Special Tomato chair in a great mood! |
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
It's Finally Here!
Monday of this week James and I headed to Rochester, MN. That boy is getting really good at traveling! I get pretty worried when it's just the two of us because if he gets hungry or upset I have to stop somewhere. But, no worries. That boy loves his movies and if we stop once to eat he's usually pretty good. Tuesday we started the day with a Speech/Pathology consult. It wasn't really anything new. We talked about how James communicates right now, what he's working on in therapy at Sanford and at school and what steps we should take after implant. She definately thinks that Augmentative Communication is the route to go with James. That route definately scares me. There are so many options out there and it's so expensive. How do we know that what we choose will work? Because once we purchase one-we're stuck with it.
The second appointment of the day was James' MRI to verify that he has an auditory nerve and to check the anatomy of his head. He went to sleep really well. It took about 2 hours. He didn't wake up as good as he usually does. He had some "laryngospasms" and it caused some mischief and they were pretty concerned about doing surgery on Wednesday considering the laryngospasms and his previous airway problems. Once I got back there he seemed to be doing well, we gave him a nebulizer and got packed up to head to the next appointment. The next appointment was kinda fun. We got to pick the colors and accessories for the implant! We chose lime green for one and blue for the other. We get a back up processor so that James is never without hearing. Then came the appointment with the surgeon. I wasn't sure what to expect. I expected the MRI to be normal but after speaking with the anesthesiologists that did the MRI I was worried they would cancel surgery. He was ok with proceeding :) We did decide to put the implant on the left side instead of the right like we originally planned, because the right side has some fluid in it right now. We would expect a better outcome with the left that has no fluid. In a few weeks we'll need to have his ears looked at to make sure his tubes are working in that right ear.
So, today I'm sitting in the waiting room. James went into the OR around 8:00 this morning and surgery should take about 2 hours. Anesthesia had a pretty clear plan about how they wanted to handle him so that makes me feel better after what happened yesterday. We aren't sure yet if he'll get discharged today or if he'll have to stay the night. Only time will tell. In the meantime, I'm praying to God for strength for James and his lungs and for all that are caring for him today.
The second appointment of the day was James' MRI to verify that he has an auditory nerve and to check the anatomy of his head. He went to sleep really well. It took about 2 hours. He didn't wake up as good as he usually does. He had some "laryngospasms" and it caused some mischief and they were pretty concerned about doing surgery on Wednesday considering the laryngospasms and his previous airway problems. Once I got back there he seemed to be doing well, we gave him a nebulizer and got packed up to head to the next appointment. The next appointment was kinda fun. We got to pick the colors and accessories for the implant! We chose lime green for one and blue for the other. We get a back up processor so that James is never without hearing. Then came the appointment with the surgeon. I wasn't sure what to expect. I expected the MRI to be normal but after speaking with the anesthesiologists that did the MRI I was worried they would cancel surgery. He was ok with proceeding :) We did decide to put the implant on the left side instead of the right like we originally planned, because the right side has some fluid in it right now. We would expect a better outcome with the left that has no fluid. In a few weeks we'll need to have his ears looked at to make sure his tubes are working in that right ear.
So, today I'm sitting in the waiting room. James went into the OR around 8:00 this morning and surgery should take about 2 hours. Anesthesia had a pretty clear plan about how they wanted to handle him so that makes me feel better after what happened yesterday. We aren't sure yet if he'll get discharged today or if he'll have to stay the night. Only time will tell. In the meantime, I'm praying to God for strength for James and his lungs and for all that are caring for him today.
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