We went to get Audrena's steri strips off Wednesday morning. Dr. L. also removed some of the packing material from her left ear so that we can have an earmold made for the hearing aid that we'll use until she can have the implant. He wanted to leave as much as possible so that the fat grafts he used to patch the tube holes can heal. We will go back in a month to have the packing completely removed from both ears. Let's just say that Audrena was not happy with Dr. L. by the time the appointment was over. In fact, as we held her down for him to remove the packing, she turned all sorts of blue and purple! He commented that her feisty attitude comes from her red hair, and looked pointedly at me (for those who have not seen pictures, I have red hair). His nurse had said the same thing to me earlier, pointing out that those redheaded qualities would serve Audrena well in life.
Then we went to a programming appointment with J. It was Audrena's nap time, and she was pretty much uncooperative for most of the appointment. J. didn't tell me exactly at what levels Audrena is hearing, but she did say the responses they got in the booth were at louder levels than they had hoped for. However, based on what we have told her about the sounds Audrena is making at home, she did not adjust the program. At some point during the appointment, we heard that Audrena's stubbornness must come from her red hair. I see a theme!
From there, we went to a speech session. Audrena did a good job during that session, making sounds like "mmm," "oooo," and "aaahhhh." I have not put anything on the blog about our speech sessions here at home until now. For some time, we debated about asking for a new Speech Language Pathologist because, while the one we had was good, she has not worked much with cochlear implants. We wanted someone with lots of experience, and we think our SD School for the Deaf outreach consultant has found us one. Our Boys Town SLP agreed with our decision and was happy to see that we were seeking out experience. So to the new cochlear implant parents out there, I encourage you to do everything in your power to find experienced people to work with your child. It's so important because they will know exactly what your child needs, and they will be able to give you lots of ideas for things to do at home. That's what we need at this point in our journey.
So, here is a quick recap of the progress we have seen and the sounds Audrena makes.
"aaahhh" for airplane
"ooooo" for fire truck
"mmm" when she eats
"moo" for cow
"baa" for sheep (once at this point)
"boo" when playing peek-a-boo
"uh oh" when she dropped an item (once at this point)
attempted to say "bubbles" while we blew bubbles, although it was not clear
Responds to "turn the light on," or "turn the light off" when told. The light switches are a fun cause/effect game that Audrena loves to play.
Understands "bye bye" without being waved at.
And now, I have to give a "way to go" to Advanced Bionics customer service! We had noticed that Audrena's headpiece periodically did not sound right during our daily checks. After several attempts at trying to figure out if it was the headpiece, the cord, or the earbuds we use to listen to it, we called AB. They immediately said they would send us a new headpiece and cord. (For now we are using the backups.) Granted, they are under warranty, but I had heard in the past that AB has fantastic customer service and overnight shipping of replacement parts. This was our first experience, and we're impressed. As for the headpiece, I'm sure it's because Audrena is always putting it in her mouth, but at this point I'm not sure what to do about that. She puts everything in her mouth just like Kelton did at this age. I guess we'll just continue to be vigilant about watching her and about putting it in the dryer every night.
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