Sallie Lately

Actually some of this is not so “lately” and old news BUT I need it documented so I will catch up to this point. 

After 1 week of inpatient antibiotic infusions and 4 weeks of in home infusions Sallie was able to stop her infusions.  Several days later her picc line was removed.  She was very afraid but she did well.  She is getting SO much better at handling these things.  It was a feeling I really can’t describe for me.  That time since her implantation and then the infection was a whirlwind and full of SO much emotion.  So, to be to that point was a wonderful feeling and emotional as well.March 4th was the day she had her line removed.  That morning we had it removed and that afternoon we headed to audiologist to have 2nd device activated.  This was her initial response when it was activated!  She and her audiologist work so well together now.  Sallie plays while she does her stuff and when Sallie is comfortable with what she is doing she looks up, smiles, and gives her a thumbs up, then goes back to playing.  Obviously her reaction was not like when she was activated on the right ear.  Her brain has now learned to hear and it was not nearly as drastic.  However, there was noise in the hallway and she immediately whipped her head around to that side!  She was able to set it at a much higher level than she did initially on the first side.  These are her briefcases which hold all the components to the external device.  I wanted to have a picture like the one when she got her first device but with 2!  She was quite proud of 2!!!  Yes, here it is stuck in her ponytail.  We now pin it to her clothes.  She has a place behind that ear that still needs to heal so her ENT does not want the processor behind the ear until that is healed.  On Monday of this week we headed to the hospital bright and early for Dr. Bauer to do some clean up in both ears.  Everything went well.  The place behind her ear actually popped when he was cleaning so we just have to keep that cleaned and hopefully when we see him week after next that will be good to go.  Wednesday was a big day!  Since before Christmas break she had only been to school 2 full days and 2 half days.  So on Wednesday she headed back to school.  It was bittersweet for me.  Very thankful for her to be well enough to go back yet once again emotional.  We have had LOTS of bonding time in the last few months and it seems with every thing she goes through I hold on a little tighter.  It was made much easier by the fact that she did great!  She cried a little bit on Tues nt and then she got over it and was excited!  Thank GOD!Thursday she went back to audiologist.  She was able to do some testing and re-program 2nd device to a level comparable with 1st device.  That happened really quickly!  We NEVER thought we would see the words below written on a hearing eval for Sall!  I find myself just staring at the paper!  I have cried over MANY hearing eval sheets just like this one but this time they are happy tears.  I don’t even know how to express how thankful we are to our Lord for this!  It blows me away!  HE blows me away! 

What now?  Hopefully things are settling down some (at least with these issues).  Notice I say hopefully!  I guess we are just cautiously optimistic.  We see Dr. Bauer week after next.  He has indicated he will need to see her every 2 weeks for a while just to stay on top of it and make sure the MRSA is not rearing its ugly head again.  We have to move on to dealing with some other issues (cleft and orthodontics) pretty soon but we have put all that on hold to get these issues under control.  Thank you, Thank you for all your prayers and please continue!