4th Birthday Photo Session

4th Birthday Photo Session

Friday, February 3, 2012

Garbage Contents & Victory Dances!

It's taken me a few days to calm my ego, but, the hearing aid has been found!  (sing along) "whoop! whoop!  uh-huh, OOoh-y-e-a-h!!!"  I was pretty stoked, and pretty mortified at the same time.  In a conversation with Daddy Bean, it was suggested that perhaps the hearing aid was (gasp!) thrown away in the trash.  I gave it some thought knowing I would NEVER do that... but decided to sort the contents of the very full garbage bag on its way out to the garbage can.  A big ol' "what if?" rolling through my head.  It would be very foolish not to look.  So, I armed myself with some dish gloves, stiffled the gag, and transported the contents from one bag to another.  Hmmm... days old food scraps (sorry Portland, I'm just not feeling the whole forced composting thing...) [out-of-towners, don't even ask...], dirty diapers, and uhm, paper towels - because we are truly wasteful people and go through TONS of paper towels.  [I will plant a tree Portland, please don't protest outside my door!]  As I got down toward the bottom of the bag, thankful that my "bionic nose" is no longer super-human strong, I was shocked and amazed as I pulled out another wad of paper towel [eh-hum... s-o-r-r-y!!] I see the little beast flipping around as the contents around it shift.  I couldn't believe my eyes.  I called Daddy Bean back.  Although it was very late in Atlanta, I had to give him one less thing to worry about.  We both did a little victory dance! 

Yesterday, I took Andi to her hearing test.  I explained that she's been wearing her hearing aid for longer periods of time since they "turned it down."  They suggested putting the clip on it - so I can clip the hearing aid to her shirt.  I did that today, and she wore her hearing aid all morning long!  VICTORY!  As far as her testing, she did even better this time as far as the level of decibels she's responding to.  Wearing her hearing aid, she is responding to items just on the other side of 'normal' level - which is 'mild' hearing loss.  Amazing!!!  Did another little victory dance!

In emailing her feeding specialist, I've informed her how since Andi's stopped puking, she's more eager to eat orally.  Go figure!  Andi is eating & drinking at almost every feed.  She signs 'eat' and 'drink' and has been ingesting more and more by mouth.  Today for lunch, she had between 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of lemon Haagen Daas.  I pulled the contents out to get the air out, and then put that and the blenderized meal in... so, she definitely got a lot of calories for lunch!  So, anyway, we're meeting with the feeding clinic team in two weeks, to see if she'd tolerate being pushed more before another swallow study.  That gives me two more weeks to really strengthen that swallow and coordination by the mere act of doing... *happy dance!*  It's time-consuming, but, our overall goal is to get her off the g-tube as soon as humanly possible - and this is the way that is going to happen.  Therefore, it's worth every minute!  Can't wait for the ultimate victory dance -- when she gets the dang thing removed for good!

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