A Single Word Made Me Cry

A fw weeks ago the boys and I headed to Rochester and the Mayo Clinic for another check-up with James' cochlear implant. The Friday before we went I was able to have a meeting with his current teachers and therapists and the deaf and hard of hearing teacher from the West Fargo School District. We had decided when we moved that we wanted to keep James in his current school and class until the end of the year. We figured that moving him to a new preschool and then again to a new school in the fall for Kindergarten that it would be too much disruption and learning for both James and teachers to get much productivity. It's worked well and we're now working on getting his new teachers and therapists ready for him. Anyway, this meeting was to talk with the new teacher and let her know James abilities and needs.

While we were having this meeting his speech therapist from his current school gave me the most AMAZING news in the world. That week during school while they were working with James on Yes and No-after the therapist modeled the word "yes" for him he SAID THE WORD "YEA" ..... TWICE...ON PURPOSE! I absolutely couldn't believe it! I've cried several times over. Of course we haven't been able to get him to do it again yet-but how awesome that he was able to do it that one time! I've honestly never even really thought what James' life would be like if he could speak. I can't even imagine the possibilities that would open up for him. I've been pretty cautious with myself and don't try to think about stuff like that too much. We just take one day at a time and go from there.

So in Rochester not much has changed. They were happy with James' progress and re-programmed his mapping. He's had about 8 months of "hearing" growth in about 6 months time-so we're on track and the implant has helped! He's been a little cranky lately when we put it on in the mornings. I'm hoping it isn't beacuse of the sound being too loud. We'll have to watch him closely and hopefully he'll get used to it. In the meantime I'm not going to mess around too much with his growing programs. His growing programs are where I can slowly increase the amount of sound and the loudness of the sound. Each time we go to Rochester they program his implant with 3 growing programs and we slowly work our way through them. I usually don't push him too hard with this because I don't want him to be afraid of the implant or dislike it. We take it really slow and wait to move up until we know that he's completely comfortable where he's at currently. We'll go back to Rochester again in August before school starts and after that appointment we can start only going every 6 months or so! I'll be excited to not be traveling so much with the boys.

Short Notice

I got a bit of a short notice on some appointments. Mayo Clinic called Thursday afternoon to let us know they could get us appointments on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Wow....Of course I was so excited. I couldn't believe we finally had appointments but with only a couple days notice I wasn't sure it was really going to happen. First order of business was to get off of work....Sue and Marie at work performed a miracle for me and I got off work! Thanks a million to the people who are working night shifts for me! After getting off work I figured it would all be easy from there. We got a hotel room booked, we got the appointments confirmed, I made phone calls to our insurance to inform them of appointment dates. Lastly I arranged for Elliot to go visit Grandma and Grandpa Kitchens for the week. Auntie Abbey will watch him during the day. This was a huge load off my shoulders. It can be pretty hard to focus on James and the doctors when I have Elliot at appointments. He's not usually a bad kid, he's just busy and explores everything he can in the doctor's office. It can be a bit distracting. I'm a little sad that I won't see him for so long. He's never been away from us more than a couple of days (and that was pretty recent). He'll head to Grandma's tomorrow and we'll get him back on Saturday when we all head to Minot to my cousin's wedding.
So I guess James and I are heading to Rochester, MN to the Mayo Clinic on Monday. We'll have only one appointment each day but I think they'll each last a couple of hours. I'm not exactly sure what each of the appointments really are or what we're doing. I'm not sure if it's just talking about James or if it's testing of some sort that we haven't done here in Fargo. Wednesday we'll head back home so I can get back to work.

We recently took a trip to Minneapolis to see the Twins play. James loved the game! I'll post more details and pictures soon (hopefully while we are in Rochester since I may actually have some free time!). I'll also give everyone an update on our fundraising!