Cochlear Implants

We finally heard from our Audiologist's office this past week. They've been in contact with Mayo Clinic in Rochester and sent them all James' information and are currently reviewing the file. They'll hopefully be calling the next couple of days to set up evaluation appointments. They were able to tell us that it'll be a couple day's worth of appointments. Yikes! Andy doesn't get too much PTO at his job so I hate to have him take 2 days off for evaluation appointments when we know in the future that there will be surgery in Rochester. So hopefully (if timing works out) my fabulous friend Heather will accompany me and my boistrous boys to Rochester.
I'm not really sure what the appointments all entail or what they're going to do with James for 2 days. I thought we'd pretty much done all the testing that had to be done here in Fargo, but I guess not :S

James had a pretty busy day this past Wednesday. He went to school in the morning and right after school we headed over to Sanford for his outpatient feeding and language therapy. After therapy we headed down to Healthcare Accessories to get James wheelchair looked it. We were concerned because we can't keep his hips back in the chair. Then he ends up sitting in the pelvic tilt (he doesn't mind at all) but it's not good for his posture and developing trunk strength. They were able to added a piece of foam under his thighs and hopefully that helps. They also did a little growth adjustment. While we were at Healthcare Accessories we had James AFOs adjusted. They were leaving nasty red marks on the tendon behind his knee. He also got his new hand/wrist splints. James tends to put his hand in a closed fist with his thumb between his pointer finger and middle finger. Not a good thing. So these will help keep his hand open and his thumb out.

In other family updates:

Andy is still playing ball a couple nights a week. My cousin's daughter has been watching the boys for us! It's been fabulous and I'm sure a big learning experience for Tracy.
Andy and I were able to slip away for a day and leave the kids with my parent's for a weekend. We ran the Warrior Dash with a couple of my friends in Hastings, MN. Wow was that hard! it was an extreme 5K with obstacles. The obstacles were pretty fun but there were tons of hills to run up.
I'm still busy busy busy at work and taking kids to appointments and scheduling our lives!

Elliot....what can I say. He's two. He's a boy. Wow! He's super busy and definately destructive. He gets into everything. EVERYTHING! We think we have everything out of reach and locked up and he somehow finds more stuff or finds a way around it. Most recently he somehow got the container of Nesquick strawberry powder (we add it to milk for Elliot so he doesn't drink all James' Pediasure) and dumped the WHOLE thing onto the carpet......

I've added a few pictures :)

Andy and I after running the Warrior Dash

James watching fireworks!

got a new movie....with talking animals

wearing mommy or daddy's Warrior Dash helmet!

another Elliot mess

He was so excited to cilmb on there!

Fun day at the park

Now that James has new AFOs we got him back up in his stander!

Elliot

I don't talk much about Elliot on here, so I figured that since this is our family blog, I'd dedicate today's blog to him!

Elliot is a typical 2 year old boy. He loves cars, cows, legos, playing outside, cuddling and Mickey Mouse. If you know Elliot at all, you know that he loves cows and once he sees one, he can't stop talking about them. He talks about them, he'll tell you what they say, and he'll tell you he is one. One of my favorite Elliot moments was when he was playing horsey with his dad. While on his dad's back and he looks at me and says "Mom, I'm a cow!" I said, "No, you're a cowboy." "No Mom, I'm a cow"
He just loves cows.

Elliot is just about 2 1/2 and what a fun age. All the normal milestones are new to us, since James doesn't meet the typical milestones. He talks a mile a minute in his own language and no one has a clue what he's saying. Every once in awhile we can pick a couple words like mom, daddy, cow, car, Mickey and shoes.

Being pregnant with Elliot wasn't the easiest thing I've done, but I would do it again in heartbeat. Warning: if you're squeamish, stop reading here. One of the first things I had to do was get a cervical cerclage. The reason James was born premature is because I have and incompetent cervix, meaning that as the baby grows and gains weight, my cervix can't handle the weight and will start to funnel, thin, and dilate on it's own. So, a cervical cerclage it was. The plan was to give me spinal block but of course that didn't work so general anesthesia it was. When I woke up there was a substantial amount of pain that I wasn't expecting. All the procedure really is, is putting stitches (with super strong string) keeping my cervix closed. So I wasn't really expecting any pain, stitches aren't too big of  a deal. Well after resting for a couple of the days the pain went away and all was back to normal. Part of getting the cerclage was having an ultrasound before the procedure to verify dates and after the procedure to check the cerclage. So as planned we had an ultrasound at 14 weeks to check on the cerclage. Per our usual, something was amiss. There was an area behind the neck that was collecting extra fluid. That can be an indication of Down Syndrome, or other chromosomal abnormalities like Turner Syndrome or Edwards Syndrome. Most of you, I'm sure, are familiar with Down Syndrome. Turner Syndrome affects mostly girls and I believe they have some developmental delays and and are infertile. Edwards Syndrome, Trisomy 18, was the scariest. Most of these children don't survive the pregnancy and the ones that do-most die by their first birthday and they have extreme mental retardation. Trisomy 18 spent a little time in the news lately-Rick Santorum who was running for the Republican Party candidacy has a 3 year old daughter with Trisomy 18. All I have to say is AMAZING. She's beat so many odds by making it so far, but she does have many medical complications. Anyway after the ultrasound we were given some options. We could do nothing and see what happened or we could have an amniocentesis at15 weeks to have chromosome testing done.
I decided I needed to know and so for the next week I was on pins and needles. The amnio went well with no complications-odd sensation though. Then it was on to more waiting. I think it was about 2 weeks later that we got the results, they were normal.