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...

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.

Turkey update

No I'm not cooking a turkey, never have. But thought I'd take a minute to update everyone on the Cochlear Kids. Gage is back to duel implants. His little sore healed up from my negligence the new magnet being too strong. So you know what that means...he's crankin' up the music again. He's been listening to Waylon Jennings and The Dukes of Hazzard Theme Song! (whew, spare me!)

I wanted to quickly comment on the voluntary recall of AB cochlear implants...if my child wasn't having issues, I'd just breathe a sigh of relief. I don't think you need to freak at this point. They all (all companies) have a chance of malfunctioning, we should know!! Though I completely understand the seriousness of it. Maybe there's better testing that needs to be performed on these products before we subject our kids to surgery in the first place?

Here are a couple of things of that may interest you if you haven't read them already. The article I did on the recall and the article I did on the new Genetic testing, both of these and more can be found here.

Monday, I check Brook out early and we go to University of Montevallo to do our annual meet & greet with the up and coming SLPs or Deaf Ed students. Usually I take Gage and I decided B was gonna get a turn this year!!

Banana Popsicles

Remember when Gage went over to the local Children's Hospital to attend the radio-thon? Here's that story, he donated $5 and told the clown he wanted them to buy banana popsicles with it because he was having surgery soon...
Well, he was so doped up after surgery, he didn't remember. However when we went to the Children's South location a few weeks later when an incision popped open and needed closing in the O.R., he must have pitched a fit with the recovery nurses...? I do remember him groggily (is that a word?) telling me "They didn't have banana! I thought they would have banana!" boohoohoo...again, he was very hungry and I assured the nurses that he liked all popsicles, not sure what the big deal was about banana! Nothing was ever said again...not from him, not from anyone. We showed up yesterday at the same location to again, go to night night briefly while they carefully removed his 12 stitches. Not only did he come out with a banana popsicle, as we were leaving she gave me the whole box. "These are his!" and you could tell someone remembered, they were in their own little Publix grocery sack and everything.....I heart Children's Hospital !!! I took home a happy little boy!

A fellow Deaf Village moderator was on Oprah!!!

I had to brag on one of the moderators from Deaf Village....Katie was on OPRAH!!! I wrote an article on it and you can read it here. Examiner has my new Children's Hearing Loss Examiner page up now, which is a national title by the way (yay!) and I've been writing away! I do plan on including lots of you guys into my stories so stay tuned...better yet, subscribe to my articles or read them on Facebook!

The new do

Love the new do! It was his idea to cut it all off. I had intended to just cut the underneath part but when he was reminded about the doctors coming around the morning after surgery to pull all the head bandages off, he said, "Oh just cut it all off, that pulls my hair!" And it helped that his best friend who spent the night w/him Fri night has this exact haircut. He's all set. Bags are packed (I even was inspired to put up an article about overnight hospital stays, lol), I have B packed and ready to go spend a couple of days with my Mama. B will get to check out early tomorrow and come down to the hospital to see him when he gets out of surgery. I asked Gage what he thought about everything now that it's finally here. He said, "Well, I hate surgeries but I love attention."  Yep, he really said it. And he's getting plenty of it I assure you. I'm off to buy my final items needed (like a new Lego set *smile*) and taking B's bags to my moms and definitely squeezing in a workout to reduce building anxiety. We are professional patients. I will be updating Facebook as the day progresses tomorrow. It should take less than four hours to remove malfunctioning ci and insert new one.

Inventing the Cochlear Implant

Thank you Kelli for not noticing I've stolen this from your facebook!

Here's an interesting read. The inventor of the cochlear implant received an award recently. You'll find it in COSMOS here where you'll read about his first cochlear implant, it's super interesting!

Not much happening here, I'm still going to The Gym and look forward to a strobe light Zumba workout on Sunday! I've been incredibly busy between writing in my spare time and subbing a lot at the school, I have little time for much else. All will slow down soon when my little buddy will have his 5th ci operation, (6th incision, he did get a 2 for 1 last time!). We look forward to the PEEPs in the Park next weekend.

We are having an IEP for Gage Oct 1. He can't hear his Reading teacher who is a great teacher, just soft spoken, mic only helps so much w/his one ear so it is suggested to do pull outs, I disagree. He's failing, but either needs a teacher he can hear or needs captioning. We'll see how that goes. I'd be happy w/switching him temporarily to a teacher he can hear, and after he's all settled after his surgery, if he's caught up, hearing well, I'll consider moving him right back where he's supposed to be. I also think his ADHD meds aren't doing their job but I'll make that decision after his hearing is 'settled'.

Have a great weekend. Brook is doing good, she goes for mapping soon too. It's amazing to me that she can go so many months hearing well w/out needing mapping. She's on a 6 month map (I think) but she'll be one of the lucky ones in the future that gets to go yearly I think. She's doing well in school, a little behavior issues but nothing like last year! Whew!



Meet Turdy

B's gonna be sad today when I tell her we need to find Turdy a home. He needs to be in his natural environment and not constantly in the hands of a six year old. She says things like, "Awww Turdy, come on girl or boy, come on!" But we will find him a real home later today. B had an unfortunate accident yesterday while climbing on my counter to get her a cup. She forgot the bottom cabinet door was left open so when she jumped down still facing the cabinets, she almost straddled the lower cabinet but she's okay. Mommy fixed her but she does have a major bruise where she landed w/such force, we had to reattach some of the cabinet facing that was pulled off.
We got her FM back and one ear seems to be working fine but she says one is still staticy so I have them in the dry n store (her receivers) but Gage's is still working fine. I hope it doesn't malfunction because he needs his real bad!! One teacher has an extra soft voice so we need his to continue doing it's job! Looks like mid October will be his surgery time, we'll know more tomorrow when the doc comes back to town.
We have several things planned for him before he goes to the O.R. again. Next weekend he gets to go watch some mud bogging and rock crawling vehicles in action. Then in late Sept. we have the weekend beach trip for PEEPs in the park. So excited.
If you want to read my Examiner.com articles, I've made it easy for you to find them on facebook, see my new like button over in the right hand column here on the blog.....easy as pie. More updates on Gagie Poo as they develop.

So far so good

So far so good on the school situations! No check marks for behavior!! Woop woop! I figured out Gage is more comfortable with his sensitivity turned down to 6 instead of at 12 on the right, troubled ear. His Fm is working well and he's not coming home exhausted which is usually his signature for a day of struggle. B's FM isn't working but I'm gonna try it once more in the morning and if it still doesn't work, I'll send an email to notify the Teacher of the Deaf.

In other news my Special Needs page is doing well, sometimes found in the top five read articles of the Huntsville channel of Examiner.com. Yay.
I've now been given my second title which is Etowah Co Stay-at-Home Moms Examiner so go check it out here and subscribe to them if you want to receive them in your inbox. Hoping to get some subbing calls in soon, getting antsy.

Depressing news

As if B's last HINT (hearing in noise test) wasn't bad enough, my oldest child who has had four cochlear implant surgeries already, could still face another in his future. His right ear which is holding it's one and only ci (so far) which was inserted just over a year ago, isn't pulling its weight anymore. He has 10 electrodes turned off currently. He loves hearing and has loved being bilateral but this could cause major difficulty for him in the classroom so I will have to check his sounds (many babble sounds) several times a week to note any changes ASAP. Here you'll find where I explained more about electrodes in non tech terms. You know Mama's just concerned. I have no idea how long we have to use what we have before replacing it becomes an option. Put it this way, when she cut him back on after mapping both ears, he said, "Yea, sounds normal" and she had to TELL HIM that he was only hearing from left (good) side. She had not turned rt one on at all and he still said he could not tell he was only using left so I'm guessing he has been really focusing or really using his left ear primarily for the last few weeks, so much so, he didn't notice the right anymore and it seems right is doing him little good. More later...

But on a good note, I did manage to make it to the Top 5 of the Huntsville division of Examiner.com . Be sure to keep a check on it HERE or just subscribe to the articles. I was gonna write one today but I'm gonna mope instead. I'll be more in the mood tomorrow when all this has sunk in.

Got tape?

And once again we pack up our supplies to walk thru those school doors on Monday YIPEE

 Here is our emergency backpack kit that I place w/each child so they are prepared to replace batteries or tape should they need to.

Four and a half glorious days!

And I'm only kidding, sort of we have had fun this summer but this last week has been nothing but fights. They are extremely bored and need the routine of school again!

Tomorrow is B's orientation. Gage goes for mapping on Friday.

I also want to remind you all to sign up for my email alerts on Examiner.com

Click here

Although I'm required to make the content apply to a particular area, the subject matter is still general special needs, from hearing loss to school to accessibility, and more. I've only been 'on the job' 2 weeks and have acquired many subscribers (yay! thank you facebook friends) and can't wait to dig in and write even more articles on many different disabilities! I love doing this and have applied for additional topics and keeping my fingers crossed they'll give me more after I finish the first four week training period.

Teaching an old dog new tricks

Wow, have I got a lot to learn! I wrote my first article yesterday for Examiner.com (click here for my page) and realized writing in AP down style is harder than it looks. I had my title as No Insurance? and was corrected by one of the biggies there as No insurance? conforming to AP down style of only first word capitalized unless proper noun...oops! But they are so great, I'm taking some online courses they offer to help me learn. I'm so excited to be the Etowah Co Special Needs Kids Examiner. I hope people will visit my page often and subscribe to me so I'll have the fire I need to write several articles a week. With my first day (and not even a full day) I tripled the page views some of the others in my field get per day so thank you friends, big (((hugs))). I realize I need my Cochlear Kids blog more than ever now, 'cause I'm not gettin' graded here! Whew, had to get it off my chest.

she loves using my camera and taking 84 pics of herself, her dolls, her dolls' shoes, her bed, her stuffed animals, etc.

In other news, I let Brook get in the pool yesterday for the first time since her stitches last week but I told her not to go under! So far so good, by Friday, she should be set to go back to her normal 15 swims a day.

Also we have her speech perception test in the morning! Details of that visit later! 18 days til school starts, woop woop!