I never posted a pic of Sallie with her cochlear on. Here it is! Yes, it is bright. Actually though, you do not see it like you do here. Her hair covers it most of the time. Not that I am trying to cover it. We are proud of it! It is just that the way her hair falls it covers it mostly. Also her magnet is so much lower than most. This is partly due to the area he went in to get the tissue he used inside the ear. Placing it here prevented him from having to go too far from that incision. She also has a white external unit but she never wants to wear the white. You get two units so that if there is ever a problem with 1 they will have 1 to wear while the other is being repaired. We chose white for our other one but she is not interested!
Remember this?
2 Weeks later after being turned up these were her test results! AMAZING! NO ONE thought we would get here this quickly. These results are within a normal hearing range with the exception of higher frequencies. Our audiologist made some adjustments to hopefully get her hearing those frequencies better. Also she said that because Sallie has never been able to hear those frequencies it will take longer for her to recognize and respond at those high frequencies. We reached our maintenance plan within 1 month of being activated and this is very uncommon. PRAISE GOD!!! I can’t tell you how many of these same papers I have and to look at this one compared to all those is about more than I can handle!
This past Monday we headed back for more surgery. He cleaned up from surgery on the right ear and on the left ear he made about an 1 inch incision behind her ear, more at the base of her head and took some fat which he placed inside that ear in an area that was collecting a lot of debris which eventually leads to the tumors. He felt good about what he had done and we will just see what happens in that ear from here. He said he would most likely have to go back in that ear in about 2 months to do clean up just like he just did in the right ear. Not sure what her future holds with her left ear but it may be another year of decision making… Only God knows so we will just take it day by day. In this pic we are on our way to the hospital. She was so brave! She is getting much better about dealing with this stuff. She has her moments for sure but she tries really hard to be a big girl. She breaks down at the end when she knows they are about to take her from us and she does not like to take the pre-meds because she knows what they do to her and what is to come. In fact, this time she spit about half of the pre-meds on the nurse. She has never done anything like that and I was not happy with her. She was just showing out! I am sure I would show out to! This was her 23rd surgery. It NEVER gets easier for us… She has recovered well. She has not wanted to wear her cochlear since the surgery. I think she was just extra sensitive and did not like the way it felt when it was on. Today she has done much better with it so maybe we are back on track!
What now? Thursday we will see Dr. Bauer for a follow-up on surgery. I am sure we will continue to see him frequently for a while. We have a couple more weeks before we see audiology again and she will do more testing. Hopefully this surgery did not change anything. We did not have therapy this past week because of the surgery but should continue on with therapy this coming week. She is becoming much more verbal. Mostly just noise but she will attempt to say words when prompted. For a long time she has said Ma for me. Well, now she can say MOM! I annoy everyone else in the house getting her to say it but I DO NOT CARE! Major prayer request would be school. The girls start on August 27th and Sallie will not let me out of her sight. I guess all she has been through this summer and me being with her all the time has gotten her super attached to me. We have to force her to do things with A which has never been an issue. SO all of that to say, we anticipate the transition back to school to be a challenge. Also, one of her main special ed teachers who she and we loved dearly resigned. She would text us updates and pics of Sallie during school at least once a week. She was wonderful to us. In fact she even brought us dinner after Sallie had her implant. Between this change, the changes with Sallie and her cochlear, the attachment she has to me and me to her as a result of our summer I can’t imagine the first day/week/maybe month of school! I know, HE KNOWS…
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