The Countdown

Well we've been missing due to the holiday; new baby, not ours THANK GOD but my brothers and injury, me with my knee. We got the go ahead a couple of weeks ago for Max's surgery on December 11th.

36 hours before surgery Max coughs, not unusual we have a woodstove blaring all the time, we live in the woods, things have been wet and snowy, it's winter. He also takes a 2 hour nap. He doesn't usually take naps, especially not when I want to take a nap.

22 hours before surgery Max gets up extremely early for him. I usually wake him up at 6:30 am for school but today, today he is up at 5:45 am. Silly, silly boy. He must be excited about his "new" ear and going to the birthday party at Build-A-Bear this afternoon.

23 hours before surgery on our way to school. Max is coughing. ALOT. Yikes! No snot though, doesn't sound rattley. I look in the rearview mirror at him. HE IS ASLEEP!!!!!! He never falls asleep on the way to school. This is not looking good.

21 hours before surgery We get to school and I wake Max up. His eyes look purpley underneath, hmmmmm, he looks pale too. We go into the school and Max's teacher see us. She notices that Max does not look well and comments, she also states that he seems "off". Uh yeah, like in getting sick. I cart Max next door to see the surgeon. Thank God it's Wednesday and the surgeon is in today.

20 hours before surgery Max gets his lungs checked, all clear despite the coughing. Max says his ear hurts and tells the doctor "yeah, it hurts". Doctor looks in ear, sees redness and Max's surgery for tomorrow is OFF!!!!!

Yep, it happened again. We went through this the 1st time around, except time wasn't of the essence that time and this time it is. Surgery is scheduled for December 23rd but having had time to think, think, think and discuss this with Max's dad, we're thinking "No". We don't want to make Max go through the surgery and possibly have a miserable Christmas. Just can't do it. So I will call the doctor's office and see if we cannot get it moved to the following week. If not, then as Max's doctor said this morning, "It's all in God's timing, he will get it in God's timing." And it is and will be. Can you hear me?

Do YOU Hear That?

There's no tapping going on here. Instead I'm SCREAMING, THANK YOU GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We got our insurance approval yesterday for Max's 2nd implant so the surgery set for December 2nd is ON!!!!!!!! I am extremely excited and relieved and soon to be nervous (this is a huge rollercoaster of emotions) but this is such a huge, huge blessing. I cannot wait for Max to hear with two ears, not just one, but two like everyone else. It's something that a lot of hearing people take for granted (not me anymore though). Now the only thing to do is choose the color. Last time we didn't choose, because I was so frazzled with his surgery and my daughter's seizures (and EEG's and MRI's and waiting for her diagnosis) that I didn't give any thought to the color of the processor and such. Bummer for us cause I would have like to have gone with a different color than beige. However, this time around I am on top of this and I'm choosing a different color, maybe black, gray, or blue. Does anyone wanna chime in on color selection? Gosh, I'm so excited. You can all expect a post (or three or four) as it gets closer on nervousness but I'M STILL FREAKING EXCITED!!!!!!!!!! Can you HEAR me?

Tap, Tap, Tap

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.... do you hear me tapping? I am STILL waiting to hear whether insurance has approved our 2nd implant. The suspense has me hanging on the edge and I don't do well on the edge. I just can't understand what the hold up is. Actually I can't understand why insurance would have a problem with someone having two ears to begin with... other than they are run by the mafia and it's legalized theft but because we have sooo many issues, we have to have it. Anyway, if I'm not tapping my foot, I'm tapping a pencil or pen.

On another note, Max has had very dry lips so I bought him some chapstick of his very own. Well, apparently when you are just learning to speak chapstick is a very hard thing to say as it comes out of his mouth as "chashit". Crap! This reminds me so much of the e-mail I received a long time ago about it being the worst mother's day ever because she found out that her small son had been putting chapstick on the cat's butt! Apparently my son has read or heard of that e-mail because no matter how hard we practice trying to say it right, it still comes out as "chashit". I think I'll notify his SLP and see if she can get it to come out right.
Can you hear me?

BI-BI

Remember my "Most Expensive Tube" post? Wellllll, God may have had a very good reason for that tube being a nuisance. Last week I got the hospital bill AND our EOB from insurance. We had met our deductible exactly. I really didn't think to much about it until yesterday morning, on our way to school (again that sporadic thinking which apparently sometimes is a good thing). It hit me. Our deductible for the year IS PAID, WE COULD GET ANOTHER IMPLANT!!!! So when Max had his appointment with his Dr. yesterday (have I mentioned we LOVE him?), I brought up that our deductible was paid and asked if he thought we could get Max a 2nd implant before the end of the year. Max's doctor said, "For him absolutely." I will do it on Christmas day if I have to. So he went out and gave all the instructions to his nurse and we have a surgery date of December 2nd. Whooo Hoooo! I'm thinking maybe, just maybe, we could be activated right before Christmas!!!!! Goodness, what a great Christmas present that would be, being able to hear out of both ears.

While I'm totally psyched at this turn of the most expensive tube, I'm still a little nervous about the whole surgery thing. For some reason, in my mind, which is obviously a little askew, it feels more like a cosmetic thing rather than a necessity. For his first surgery I knew that he had to have it to get sound and therefore gain speech. But this surgery, well, he's got sound, albeit in one ear, so it seems a little greedy to ask for the other one to be done. I do know that the benefits of the surgery far outweigh the trauma of surgery. For one, better localization, ease in noisy situations, better access to sound and a richer sound (that is once the new ear adjusts), and there's always the case if one has a failure, he's still able to have access to sound. A lot of parents have told me that their kids really seem to "take off" when they get the second ear. So I know that it is Max's best interest to get that 2nd ear. He's done so well with the first ear that I can't even begin to imagine how well he will do with the 2nd. I'm sure we'll have lots of exciting posts to add to our blog when we get this thing moving along.

The surgery, well you can bet that I'm going to be all freaked until it is over. I don't think that any mother can hand her child off knowing what is about to come, even if it is all good, without tears. But I will be praying for our 2nd miracle the whole time. Can you HEAR me?

Teaching Fun

I can't begin to tell you the fun I have sometimes when I try to teach Max. Today we are missing school because Em is sick. So lunch is over and Max wants "cookies?" specifically "two cookies." So I try to hand him two chocolate chip cookies. He takes the first chocolate chip cookie but when I try to hand him the second cookie, Nope. He wants "black cookie".
Me: "Oh, you want an Oreo cookie too"
Me: "Oreo"
Max: "No, black"
Me: "yes, it's black but it's an Oreo cookie"
Max: "No, black cookie"
Me: "yes, but it's called an Oreo"
Max: (Holds up chocolate chip cookie) "What's that?"
Me: "Chocolate chip cookie"
Max: "No, brown"
Me: "It's a chocolate chip cookie that is brown yes"
Max (Holds up Oreo) "What's that?"
Me: "Oreo"
Max: "No, black"
Max: (Holding up cookies) "Black cookie.....brown cookie".

At this point he jumps/turns/runs away a la Spiderman.

Does this explain why I tend to ramble? Can you HEAR me?