No more holes in his head...

That's right!!! Yes, it's still a little red but it's NEW, FRESH, UNINFECTED SKIN!! Best Christmas Gift Ever!!!

And here's what his new FM will look like. He still uses the same teacher's mic but he will now wear this around his neck (he doesn't mind)...have neck loop, will travel...my baby will finally be able to hear better in class now. I'll be setting it all up Monday when they return to school.

We're enjoying our break. I'm working at the accountant's office a couple of days a week, subbing will resume also next week. I want you to read about one of my favorite ladies in the whole wide world... Miss Pam.

For your viewing pleasure...some of B's photography...

Very quick update

We have Gage's new FM system, ready for when he returns to school on Jan. 3. I'll do a better update w/pics later in the week, they are keeping me on my toes around here!

Gage went into the booth today, and the results are very promising. He's had no AVT training this go around...only a little babble here and there w/me at home. We know over this break from school what we need to be working on, he simply needs more practice hearing with the new(est) ear and we are sure his scores will improve for that ear! He scored a 76% as far as comprehension of certain word lists with that newly implanted ear...he's only been hearing w/it a few weeks...on his other ear (left) which is also a reimplant-he lost it couple of years ago due to a staph infection-scored a 96% in comprehension. His audiogram looks great and he, as usual, can hear better than me on paper, in a sound proof booth, if it were only that easy in the real world...we could have been out of there much sooner if we didn't have to wait on him to 'act out' each response. It's just not like Gage to repeat "wide" or "else" from a word list, we had to wait on him to dream up visual responses to go along with his answers so as you can imagine, this took extra time.....
to be continued.................

Feeling Better

Two of the four Blakelys have been ill. Brook and I have likely had the flu or some other knock-you-down illness over the last week. We had been sick the week before, but got well for several days only to relapse, and severely.

On our worst night, my parents brought over two small bottles of bourbon. I was instructed to take a shot of it, go back to bed, and repeat this the following day w/small shots throughout the day. She poured me a tiny bit in a glass, I protested, but knowing she was likely right, I downed it in a hurry. I could actually feel it burn holes in my esophagus and rip my stomach lining wide open. I began to sweat. And I continued to sweat all night, and every time I took a shot I'd sweat more. So apparently sweating out the illness works because just a couple of days later, I'm much better!  Brooklyn's fever lingered but she's better now. Unfortunately, we had to cancel her b'day party Saturday. She will open her gifts today during our two Christmas events. We have to go to my Grandmother's and then over to my mom's so she'll get to have cupcakes over there and open the remaining gifts.

Gage is doing better. We are still watching the tiny spot. Still not completely healed but we have made major progress! Looks much better!

Also I figured out what a flashing orange light means on the N5 battery charger. I woke to find one battery light was green (meaning battery is charged and ready) while one was flashing orange. Weird 'cause usually the orange light stays on when charging and doesn't flash. After I tried and tried to make it stop, I realized it was disposable batteries, instead of a rechargeable one. Duh. So there, you go.

I have started back part time at the accountant's office where I used to work. I try to help them during their busy season (Jan-Apr) as needed. I get to make $ and I can usually slide in and out w/little training 'cause I worked there for years. I'm still writing (mainly as a hobby) for Examiner.com when I seem to only produce 6-10 articles per week...whatever I have time for. And I'm still subbing (3 days a week). So yes, technically I have 3 part time jobs AND remain full time mommy at home. After the kids get out of school each day, my working day ends, I do not allow any type of work to overshadow the kids, so I cut off at 3 and begin just being Mom. I go to bed early and recharge, wake very early to write and start my day at whatever job I'm doing for the day. But we are managing quite nicely, and I'm enjoying contributing to the family income...feels good. I somehow I feel better having an array of income sources rather than one...guess I feel safer that way..?

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone.

Infection update

So here's our update on Gage's incision situation. We are in a much better place now. As always, nobody can use my photos without my permission. You may have to click to see them really well. The base photo is where we are now, with the other two inserts showing where we came from.

The Tease...

So we have a little tease on our hands...Gage's incision keeps taunting us, pretending it's gonna heal, and just when you think you've got it in the bag...it'll ooze (shudder). Again this morning, it did the same thing, so I alerted our favorite doctor and nurse who wanted to see G man. While waiting for our name to be called, this happened....

"Excuse me, are those hearing aid things...do those work well? We've been talking about doing one of those, do they screw in?"...
The conversation progressed, we talked about BAHAs and cochlear implants and her son's surgically enlarged ear canals due to his ongoing battle with Cholesteatoma or benign tumors in his ears. We discussed being frequent patients of Dr. Woolley's for almost ten years for us, eleven for them. We seemed to relate to everything from surgery to sleepless nights to spur of the moment 2 hr trips to the ENT. I had told them why we were there and we continued chatting until her son's name was called.

She looked back at me and said, "Well, I hope you have a wasted trip." I smiled back and said, "Me too!" We both knew as parents that there's a lot of time to pray on that long drive in to see the doctor, and we know we've prayed more than once that he'd tell us our kids were just fine. I'd much rather have a wasted trip just so I can sleep at night, knowing my child is well.

Minutes later, another lady asked me the same thing...her child had Cholesteatoma too and they were looking into the BAHAs-bone anchored hearing aids (I'm assuming this is what she was talking about) Had a nice little chat with her as well, gave her a PEEPs card and told her I'd find her a BAHA family if she'd email me...

We were called back soon after, no one is surprised to see us. A very lengthy note was taken from the nurse about what I've seen thus far. The doc comes in, removes the dried ooze (shudder) and scab to find nothing was left to culture, no yucky stuff underneath, only a small hole in the top few layers of skin. He isn't even sure why it's taking so long to heal. The slow heaing isn't totally new. We've had some slow healers before but we're 7-8 weeks out now, I just wish this thing would completely heal and stop teasing us.

So for now, I have my at home care instructions, we are on watch, but I am gonna sleep tonight, knowing we've had it examined. Whether it turns out to be a starting point for more exams or whether the wound decides to go ahead and heal, we're at a good place...today.

Incision Decisions

Well, his cochlear implant surgery was on Oct 18 with a follow up O.R. visit on Oct 27 to close the incision that popped open in front of his ear and one more final trip on Nov 11 to remove stitches and have his final 'clean up' so here's what we're left with. There's this one tiny spot on top that was slower to heal than the rest. We'd get a good clean scab on it and keep polysporin on it, only to have it ooze out of the blue at which time we'd revert back to peroxide for cleaning, followed by more polysporin. The problem is, we kept doing it over and over without accomplishing a final and complete healing of the incision. So, I called the surgeon this week, told him what was going on, got the oral antibiotic and prescription cream and already it looks much better to me! No yucky stuff at all anymore, we have a healthy looking scab. So hopefully by the end of next week, we can say he's good to go. He's getting tired of not riding his four wheeler but I can't have his helmet rubbing off the scab so I told him he's gonna have to wait a couple of more weeks at least. He's fine with that.

On a side note, I just spoke to both of my deaf children via walkie talkie. I know I've put up a video of that before (see here-2009) but I'm amazed every single time I hear a sweet little voice say "Mama, it's not very cold out here. We're out by the tree house." I always ask a question to make sure I'm not kidding myself, and see if they truly can understand me without being in the house with me..."Do you see the dog anywhere?" and then I hear, "He's right here playing with a dead armadillo."   NICE.

Last update, my niece doesn't have Angioedema either, last one to check is Brook, anyone wanna hold her down while they draw blood?