Update on Norah and Boo’s new hair do.

I don’t know what you would classify this hair cut as, but Brandon likes it and it works for me and Lori too, so we will roll with it. You never know what he will look like from one day to the next. He’s a good kid and stays out of trouble so no complaints. In fact he got all A’s and B’s this last semester. Way to go Brandon!

Norah was hanging on him last night like he was her best friend.

They usually don‘t hang out together so it is definite progress.

Poor Norah, she still sounds congested, so I will be taking her back to the DR. to see if there is anything else we can do for her. At least as of yesterday she didn’t need anymore fever meds. She finished up her pneumonia meds today, so we will see if they worked when she has some follow up x-rays tomorrow. Night time always seems to be the worst for her breathing and that is scary as a parent. You go into a kind of twilight sleep where you are not fully asleep but drifting in and out so you can keep and ear on your child for sounds of distress. As you can see in the photo Norah is still in good spirits during the day. She even let her Dad practice braiding her hair. You can’t see it in the photo but she has like 9 braids in her hair. What a good girl I have.
AND What a smart son.

Norah’s surgery postponed till March 26th. Why? Pneumonia in both lungs.

I don’t know what is about scheduling surgery for Norah and her getting sick but we are two for two. Two weeks before her first CI implant she got sick with a runny nose and high fever. We took her to the doctor and because it cleared up within two days and didn’t involve the lungs and she had 9 days of good health before surgery we and her doctors proceeded with her first CI.

Fast forward to yesterday. She had fallen asleep in the truck on the way to speech therapy. Then at therapy she started sneezing, by the time we got home around lunch time she started coughing every once in awhile and began to run a fever. That was treated with children’s meds for fever and cough. When Lori got home we decided to take Norah to the doctor the next day if she didn’t get better by morning. Last night was horrible. I was so worried, Norah sounded so raspy when she would breathe in and out. Lori was up with her most of the night and had to comvince her to take tylenol at 2 am. Norah spent most of the night sleeping on Lori. I was glad to see morning come. I called the clinic and they told me to come down and they would work us in. I told the docotr what was up and about Norah’s pending surgery and he checked her out and didn’t hear anything wrong with her lungs but decided to do chest x-rays just to be on the safe side. Low and behold Light Pneumonia in both Lungs. So I called Children’s and they rescheduled Norah for March 26th because it would be way to dangerous for Norah to have surgery with compromised lungs. I think she has only been sick three times since we have been home from China (approx. ten months) and now two of the times were before a surgery. Oh and that photo above was just taken 10 minuets ago. I swear she makes me laugh even when she is sick. I painted her finger and toes, the goggles were her idea. Hopefully tonight will be better for her.

Two ears are better then one.

Ha-ha this is the girl that we live with everyday!

Pleases keep Norah in your thoughts. She will be going back to Children’s hospital on the 29th of January to get her left ear implanted with a CI. It is well documented that kids with Bilateral Cochlear Implants do much better with speech, hearing in noisy situations and in discriminating which direction sound is coming from.
Right now when Norah hears Lori or I call her name she must look around at us to see who called her. With two CI’s she should start to learn where the sound is coming from.

It is amazing how the brain can tell in a milli-second that the sound hit the left ear first so that is the direction of the sound production.

We hope this will help her when she gets to school too. To hear people on her left side or right side talk to her.

She still has a long way to go before she understands speech.

We will be in speech therapy for years to help Norah learn to listen and speak. Luckily she loves going to speech therapy. I see her making progress with her listening and speech every week so we are hopeful that she will be able to communicate with her hands much more in the coming years and be starting to use her voice more.

After her ear has time to heal they will activate her left ear and we will work on wearing that ears CI processor for a month by its self to program that ear to a good mapping. Then she will start wearing both, if everything goes well within one year of coming home from China she will have gone from being profoundly deaf in both ears all the time to being able hear a whisper in both ears when her CI’s are on. We are excited and nervous about her upcoming surgery. She has a really good surgeon but there is always risks with any surgery so again pleases be thinking about her on the 29th.







That's one sharp dressed sheep!

Norah's upgrades to new CI processor called the Nucleus 5

This is Cochlear’s new CI processor called the Nucleus 5. Norah will be getting her left ear implanted soon and this is the processor she will be getting. At that time we will also get another one that we will use to upgrade her right ear with. We will keep her cochlear freedoms as backups. Hopefully it will give her better sound discrimination in noisy situations in the left ear and the already implanted right ear. I am happy with the new smaller size and I think she will be too.

Norah hits the gym.

We took Norah to a tummling class to try it out. She saw the other kids and it was BYE Mom and Dad I’m going to play! This would not have happened four months ago. She would have had to have Lori or I with her the whole time, by her side. It was nice to see her trust us enough to go play and have fun and let us watch from the parent viewing room. She will be getting her second cochlear implant this month, so after her ear heals she will start gymnastics once a week for as long as she wants to go. We were very fortunate to find a place that went the extra mile and had a person to go around just with Norah AND the owner taught at the deaf school for many years. What an amazing bonus.

Getting rid of cabin fever.

Norah, Lori and I took a trip to a school that has really good play equipment on it, dump trucks and other toys sit out to be played with. Norah was so glad to get out of the house, it has been cold for us so we have been staying inside. These photos were taken the day we took her sponge rollers out so her hair is curly.

Annie is all settled in.

We took Annie’s things to her and she got her key to her new apartment. Norah was glad to see Annie and rembered her from our other visits. I wasn’t sure how she would react but she was fine. Annie had brought Norah some gifts back from China with her. Norah could not wait to get everything on and obviously loves them all. We took Annie and two of her Chinese friends from UCA to Wal-Mart for a shopping trip to get food and supplies for the next couple of weeks. Then it was time to say goodbye and we left Annie to unpack and get settled in for another school year. We will go visit in February and go to eat and Wal-Mart, it was so good to see her again.

It's Cold and Annie is Back

Norah got to play in the snow and did all right until her hands got cold, then it was time to go into the house.

Norah and I are taking a trip to UCA tomorrow to visit with Annie and take her thingsto her that we had stored at our house while she went back to China for the summer. She was going to come back last fall but she was having fun in China and was playing soccer and tore her ACL two days before she was to board a plane back the U.S.. I missed her, she helped me keep my sanity while waiting for a referral for Norah. I took care of her and protected her like she was my daughter while she lived with us. I still care for her but she doesn't need me to look after her like I did when she was a junior in high school. It is more like the relationship between a father and his daughter that is in her second year of college. If she needs us we are close enough to help but, we find that Annie has things pretty much figured out by now and so we just make a trip to UCA every once in awhile and text her to check in once a week. Her parents like that we are here to help if needed and we like the fact that Annie still calls us mom and dad and shares her college life with us.

Sponge curler results

Can't tear eyes away from cartoons for picture! Yes, that is chocolate pudding on her face, yes it is 8am, yes there is milk in chocolate pudding. Don't judge me :)

Finally got her to smile.

MMMMMMM! I love chocolate pudding.

Nightlife, Princess party and sponge rollers

What do we do around the house at night you ask.....well, we like to dress up our stuffed sheep and then pretend to take pictures of them with our pink princess phone of course.

Norah was invited to our friend Rachael's house for her 5th birthday today. There was fingernail and toenail painting, hair curling, and dress up princess gowns and crowns. All of it was right up Norah's alley. She had a great time with all of the other girls. There was even a group picture taken on the front porch. Happy Birthday Rachael!

We are trying out the retro pink sponge curlers tonight to see if Norah will allow them to stay in her hair. She is going to be the flower girl in my brothers wedding in April and we will need to have her hair curly to camoflage the spots where it had to be shaved for her two implant surgeries. Wish us luck cause if Norah doesn't want it to happen it ...will...not....happen! We are getting alot of the hands on hips attitude lately. It is kind of cute but will have to be nipped in the bud if at all possible. I'm the Mama! I'm the boss......right?

A few pictures from 2009

Obviously this is not a complete record of 2009 but here are a few pictures of what is becoming known as the Year of Norah around our house. Happy New Year. Hopefully this next year will bring us all joy and blessings beyond measure.