This article discusses the future of cochlear implant surgery - they are heading towards non-invasive. This is amazing stuff! I wonder if it could lead to something more fully implantable, so the outer parts are smaller or nonexistent.
Well, it’s official. Sophie is profoundly deaf in both ears. The high-tech test they conducted can test up to about 100-110 decibels (that’s really loud!) and they got no response at that level in either ear.
This time we will not hem and haw. With a CI (or two), Sophie will have amazing modern technology that will allow her access to the full range of speech sounds. And while she is a couple of years older than most children who are implanted these days (they are now implanting most children between the ages of 6 and 12 months), she is still young enough to develop close to normal speech (or even normal speech) if provided with the appropriate learning opportunities. Don’t get me wrong, we are signing furiously with Sophie right now. And we hope she will acquire as many signs as possible in the next 6-8 months or so (for starters), but at the same time, we can begin exposing and familiarizing her to the world of sound so that when she is ready to speak words, she will have a base of vocabulary to begin with. Whether or not we continue to sign with her or transition to a more oral focus is going to be largely up to Sophie. With Adelina, we took our cues from her, and it is our plan with Sophie to do the same thing. We will provide her all the opportunities to learn sign and develop speech, and see what she does with those resources. Truth be told, learning to talk is much harder work than learning to sign, but the payoff in life is massive. Being able to live and work independently in the hearing world is a huge asset, and one that we hope both our girls will gain before it’s all through.
So that’s the big news for the day.
I have been quite busy as may be expected, but I’m going to see what I can throw together as an update.
First of all, Sophie is doing really well. She continues to bless us with a most pleasant personality, a sweet temperament, and a love for her new life. She is eating well, sleeping okay, and exploring her new world with fervor. She smiles so often that I think we are all feeling uplifted by her presence. She isn’t perfect by any stretch and has so much to learn about life in a family, communication, and so many things. But she is taking it all in stride and seems to fit in just perfectly. She loves to get tossed into the air, swing at the park, climb, walk, play in the sand, and so many other things that kids just love to do. She loves her clothes and it is not unusual for her to change her outfit 3 or 4 times a day. This will eventually have to stop, but since she is also a terribly messy little toddler, it is often not such a big deal. And the textures and colors and patterns are all so new to her. She just wants to experience it all, and who can blame her!? So we indulge for now.
As for communication, she is definitely starting to clue in to sign language. She hasn’t completely “gotten it” yet, but she definitely understands a few signs, and there are a few she will sign when prompted or with modeling. She still doesn’t sign anything spontaneously, but we are confident that it will come.
Adelina and Sophie are starting to bond. This is a big deal because, for the most part, Adelina has been rather offended by Sophie’s presence in our house and family. For awhile, everything Sophie did was wrong including standing in the same room Adelina was in. Touching and relocating toys and other items makes her positively insane. Finally, she is beginning to learn how to play with Sophie in simple and fun ways. Their favorite “game” so far is for Adelina to play horse and for Sophie to ride on her back. This is so cute, as they are each just the right size to do their part. Sophie is definitely light enough, and Adelina is definitely strong enough.
I’m not sure what else to share. Life is full and life is fun. Sophie has an easy going personality, so that provides some balance to Adelina’s more “spirited” temperament. I’ve decided to enroll Sophie and myself in a parent-tot swimming class to allow Sophie to begin to get more comfortable in the water. She is still warming up to baths, so it may take some time. Since we’re having a pool put in soon, it makes sense to start acclimating her to swimming sooner rather than later. Also, we’ll be enrolling Adelina into gymnastics starting this coming week. She is really excited, and I think the timing is good. She has enough receptive language to follow along with the instructions, especially since they will be followed immediately by physical examples of whatever the instructions were. She has been working on cartwheels, handstands, and the like in the living room for several months now, so it will be neat to see what she is able to do. If she stays true to past trends, she will do quite well. She seems to be a born athlete.
Adelina started at her new school this past week, but it was something of a rough first week. First of all, it was a 3 day week, and she stayed home on Monday because she was sick clear up through Sunday night, and I wasn’t going to send her off the next morning even if she was fever-free because she could relapse too easily. But she seemed enough improved on Monday, so Tuesday was her official first day. The van that was supposed to pick her up ended up being two HOURS late, which is ridiculous, but evidently that had never happened before. Oh well, even with the delay, her first day seemed to go well. Then Wednesday, only her second day at her new school, and she got sick on the van ride home. She threw up twice and arrived home a most disgusting mess. I felt so bad for her. Evidently they had eaten a huge Thanksgiving feast at school, and then she and a friend were playing with toys all the way home. We are pretty sure it was just a bad case of motion sickness. Unfortunately, her stomach continued to refuse food until Thursday morning, when, thankfully, she woke up feeling fine and ready for some fun with friends.
Thanksgiving was really nice. I baked two pies - (go me!) and a big green jello salad to contribute to a multi-family Thanksgiving dinner. We had a wonderful time. Sophie seemed very relaxed and played well with one of the other kids while Adelina pretended to be a horse the whole time (shocker!). All the kids and adults had a great time. I was amazed at how easy it has been thus far with Sophie to engage in semi-normal life. When we came home with Adelina, that was definitely not the case (see paragraph six).
Well, that’s all I have time for now. Belated Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers!
We had an IEP meeting today regarding Adelina’s educational placement. These meetings are notoriously difficult for parents of special needs kids. You have to do a lot of research regarding what your options are and a large percentage of the time the school district will not agree with the parents regarding your choices or desires or, vice versa, the parents won’t agree on the plan of services presented by the school district. The meetings can last hours and be very frustrating. Today we had something very close to a miracle. The school district representatives fully agreed and even went so far as to present to us that the most appropriate placement for Adelina right now is the private school we want to move Adelina to. It couldn’t have been easier. Because it is their determination, the school district will pay the tuition and arrange (and pay for) her transportation to and from school every day. This is no small thing since the school is located in North Central Phoenix, a good 30 miles from our home. We are elated with this decision, and especially since it was unanimous. We were prepared to foot the bill ourselves if necessary, though we desperately hoped it wouldn’t come to that. The transportation element would also have been a burden for us. Woohoo - God is such a faithful provider! Adelina will begin at her new school on Monday. I’ll drive her for the 3 days next week, and then hopefully the district’s transportation will be worked out by the week following Thanksgiving. The only negative in this new placement is the long commute, which will make her day a bit long. But the positive side of it is that there is another student from our district who goes to the same school, and the two girls are great friends. They will be riding together each way, so it will make for a special bond.
This decision has been a few months in the making, though we have kept the idea in the back of our minds for a long time prior to now. Until recently, though, it didn’t seem like the timing was right. And, until now, the school district would have been very unlikely to fund such a move.
I feel like a huge burden has been lifted off me. We all want what is best for our kids in terms of education, and I know that this is the best thing for Adelina right now. To have the school district agree to the point of footing the bill is phenomenal. Go God!
Neither Adelina nor I slept well last night. Despite being tired and sick, I just can’t seem to convince my body that nighttime in Arizona is the time to sleep. I woke up this morning around 4-ish and kept hearing something like movement down the hallway. I mostly ignored it figuring it was Nancy using the restroom. Since I couldn’t sleep anyway, I got up and took a shower. Well, I didn’t really take a shower, I cleaned the shower. What else is there to do at 4 in the morning when you can’t sleep? Well, okay, there’s plenty, but that’s what I did. The steam helped my breathing not be so difficult and it cut down the coughing too. I was feeling pretty miserable by this time as far as my nasty cold and cough. Anyhow, after cleaning the shower I threw on some jammies and went to see who else might be up. Sure enough, Adelina was playing under her covers with her entire collection of horses and accessories. She thought I would be mad at her, but I explained that our bodies are confused and don’t know when is the right time to sleep. I asked if she wanted to help me, and she said yes, so we worked on unpacking the suitcases. We started with hers and moved on to mine. After that, I was beginning to get tired again (unpacking with a 6 year old is a slow business) and decided to go back to sleep. I think it was about 6-something at this time. Unfortunately, my feet were cold so I decided to warm them first so I could sleep better. This meant cleaning the tub first, so I did that (much quicker than cleaning the shower) and then started filing it. Just when it was approaching bathing depth (of course by this time I had decided why not warm my whole body), Adelina came in and said she was bored and needed something to do. I suggested she take a nice leisurely, fun bath in my bathtub. She loved the idea! So with my feet now warm, I crawled back into bed, while Addy had a grand time in our huge bathtub. When she got out, she went off to get dressed, and I finally crashed out again and slept another few hours. Oh, and sometime during this time is when I realized I had pink eye - both eyes. Yuck. Made a mental note to call my Doctor to see if I could get some drops to work on that.
As for more important matters, Steve and Sophie will be arriving home tomorrow. They tried to get out of Vlad on Monday, but all the flights from Seoul to the U.S. were booked. He tells me it is probably good because Sophie (and therefore, Steve) had a sleepless night and he thinks the extra day for them to rest before travel is probably good.
I can’t wait to see them both! In the meantime, I managed to get in to see the doctor this morning. In addition to confirming the pink eye, he didn’t like the sound of my cough (neither was I by this point - and it was really hurting too), and prescribed an antibiotic and a steroid for me to address it. He said with a baby coming home, we need to treat my body like I’m about to run a big race - no kidding, this doctor must be a father! So he is attacking whatever infection I have pretty aggressively. After filling all the scripts and coming home and taking all the first doses, I crashed out for the afternoon and now that I’m awake again, I’m already starting to feel better. Still can barely talk, but I have some energy again, I’m not nearly so achy, and I’m not coughing up my lungs - yippee - and the pink eye seems to be clearing already, too. Wow, three cheers for fast medicine. Steve informed me that Sophie is also coughing. I pray she doesn’t have what I have. Her body is weak, and we can’t get her good medicine until she’s in the states. They did track down some cough medicine for her. I really hope it has helped, but Steve won’t be able to contact me until he’s home - unless he can find a kind soul in Seattle who will allow him to use their cell phone (and that’s presuming he thinks of it!). In any case, they should be departing in a few hours and by this time tomorrow we’ll be a reunited family. Steve’s mom was/is scheduled to fly out Tuesday morning (that’s tomorrow), and we all decided she will fly out as planned. Nancy and Richard, thank you so much for your sacrifices to make it possible for Nancy to come along. She was/is a blessing and a help!
As for Adelina, she is ready to go back to school tomorrow. I gave her a present we had set aside for when we got back. It’s a Sonic Boom alarm clock. It will buzz really loud, it has flashing lights, and a vibrator that goes under the bed. And if all that isn’t cool enough, it’s fuscia pink and shaped like a heart with colorful neon lights for the display. Needless to say, she is quite excited to try it out. Despite the excitement, though, the long day finally caught up with her (remember she woke around 4-ish) and right around 6 tonight she started saying she was really tired and wanted to go to bed. Only jet lag does this to our girl because normally it is impossible to get her to go to bed, much less to sleep! But sure enough, by 6:20 she was crashed out hard. Hopefully she’ll sleep solidly through the night, since tomorrow is an early day - the first in a long time for her.
I think that about sums up our day. No wait, there’s one more thing. Poor Nancy was cutting an apple with our apple slicer and cut into her thumb pretty badly. I think she debated awhile with herself about whether or not she should go in to get stitches because the bleeding wouldn’t stop. Even now it is questionable if she perhaps should have done this. Oh well, time will tell.
Finally, keep my grandmother in your prayers. We call her Nanny, and she is my last remaining grandparent. She is ailing in her health and had some surgery today. Evidently she made it through and is recovering, but it is a difficult time for everyone, especially her children, all of whom are with her. She said it was like Christmas to have everyone there all together! Merry Christmas, Nanny. 
P.S. Bonus points for the first person to comment with the source of my subject line. It’s a movie quote. Steve can’t participate!
