Emma Updates

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May 2004 Archived Emma Updates

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Sunday, 5/30/2004-I have been in Las vegas since we returned from Destin and have been hard pressed to find time to update the website. Emma now says "ouch" as clear as can be when she sees someone with an injury. She is now consistently saying "out" when she wants out of her booster chair and is making great strides daily. Her receptive language is great in that she will identify animals in a book when we make those sounds and she is almost always 100%. With the hearing aid combined with the implant she is able to localize and respond to her name when called from across the backyard. She has become a little fish when it comes to swimming. She loves the water and already shows the skills of a great swimmer (she already knows how to kick and propel herself from one side of the pool to the other). Probably the biggest noticeable change in Emma since the implant is that she is a social butterfly. She loves people and loves to walk to complete strangers now and wave hello to them. She received a new cochlear map last Monday where they increased her volume a little more. She will go back in two months or so for another map. Then (I think) it will go to two or three times a year. Of course she will go back in September for follow up on the study she is enrolled in.

Saturday, 5/22/2004-We are back from Destin! We left this morning at 9am and got home at 11pm. It was not a fun trip home. Landon was sick, we had a blow out around Baton Rouge, and Emma lost her cochlear implant coil somewhere in the car half way home. But overall the trip was perfect and the weather and water and sand was perfect. I have posted more photos of the trip to Destin on the photo page. The newest photos are #3 and #4 which were posted tonight. #4 are our photos we took for our family album. I did not edit them well and a few slipped in that are not very good. The photos were taken with a Fuji Finepix S602 Digital Camera using a high shutter speed (1/1000) with the built-in flash. They were taken about one hour before sunset. The high shutter speed helps emphasize small detail such as grains of sand or water droplets. It is also helpful to keep the photo subject from blurring when that subject is a busy two year old that will not sit still!

Tuesday, 5/17/2004-Greetings from Sunny Destin Florida!!! We are at the beach for some much needed R & R. Emma has made incredible advances this week! She is repeating the sounds of cars and motorcycles that passed us on the highway. She also points to the appropriate animal in her animal book when we make the noise (and she can not see our face!!!!) SHE ALSO TOLD US THAT SHE HEARD THE SOUND OF THE WAVES CRASHING ON THE BEACH BY POINTING TO HER EAR!!!! We happened to catch that on film. You can see all the 2004 Destin Photos here. Some were taken as recently as last night on the beach. We are having a blast and Amy and I are so sunburned!!! Emma's little butt looks like the Coppertone baby on the front of the bottle. Landon and Emma get this great bronze tan within minutes of being in the sun. Amy does too. I end up looking like a lobster and having thin hair really makes things bad!!!

We are having so much fun! The beach house we are staying in has its own pool. The kids love it and Emma took right to the water. We spent all day yesterday at the pool and then went down to the beach to see Emma's dogs that she met last year while here. A local guy takes his dog's "crabbing" every night here on the beach and Emma just gets the biggest kick out of them! You will see in the photos.

DESTIN 2004 PHOTOS

Wednesday, 5/12/2004-Emma seems to no longer be showing any signs of "Fifth Disease" anymore. She seemed to feel the worst yesterday and last night. She is back to "hamming it up" as usual. Back to being the same comical Emma!

It is readily apparent that Emma is on the higher end of the curve when it comes to intelligence. Amy and I walked in this morning, and Emma had somehow gotten one of the childproof magnet keys and opened the magnetically locked childproof cabinets!!! These are supposed to be the hardest for a child to open and at 2 years of age, she has already figured this out! So much for childproofing! Fortunately, she did not get into any cabinets with dangerous things (as most of that stuff is out of reach anyway). But we were amazed that a 2 year old could figure out how to open these cabinets! She also walked up to our bedroom door, knocked and said "knock knock knock!" It was not that clear but you could clearly tell what she was trying to say. Everyday is Christmas around here with all the new things Emma is learning to do. Everyday, it is something new!

Emma has a new nickname: "Mother Hen". Actually we have been calling her this for some months now but more and more she is deciding that she needs to take Landon's plate to the trash or help get him dressed. She also loves to see a newborn baby! She is always "nurturing" to animals and other people (including adults). She often grabs her blanket and attempts to cover one of us up and then once covered she gives these soft little pats. Truly a "Mother Hen".

Monday, 5/10/2004-Emma now hears airplanes fly over. We spent most of yesterday out back playing with the kids. Everytime an airplane would fly over (some were not very loud at all either), she would immediately look up, point, and make the AV sound for airplane. Landon called to her all the way across the backyard and she turned her head. We continue to be amazed by her progress. The whole key to this being so successful has been the team support we have had from our implant team and AV therapists.

Emma awoke this morning with what appeared to be a spider bite next to her right eye. As the day went on, Amy noticed that it was getting worse and that the whole right side of Emma's face began to swell and turn red. Amy decided to take her to the pediatrician to see what she thought. She diagnosed it as "Fifth Disease". My first thought was "Oh no! Here we go again!" Turns out this is considered a minor infection and should resolve without medication on its own within 7-10 days. It also turns out that she is probably not contagious anymore and will probably develop immunity against this. But as usual, in true Emma form, she is not complaining or even fussing.

Thursday, 5/6/2004-We were up all night with both kids. Landon has strep throat and Emma woke us up at 3am vomiting. The only one that ever went back to sleep was Landon. So we are all dragging and headed to bed probably before the sun sets.

When I got home from work, Amy told me that someone had rang the doorbell today which made the dog bark. She said that it startled Emma so bad that she actually started crying!!! I think that may be one of the few times I actually like hearing that Emma was crying. This morning I cooked Emma a pancake and while she was making a mess of it I would tell her "no". She would always look up in response. It is nice not to have to yell everything for a change!!!

We were told that we should expect Emma's responding to sound and her speech to regress slightly after implantation. While we noticed a little regression in the time between surgery and hookup, we have only seen progression since hookup which is better than what we expected. We are amazed at how well she is responding. I also noticed that when I grab Emma's speech processor to make adjustments (and while it is on and attached to her head) that she blinks everytime I move it. That is because it has a microphone right on the processor and I guess me handling it makes all sorts of noise. Anyway, Emma's responding beautifully and everything looks great!

Monday, 5/3/2004-Emma continues to do well. The biggest change we have seen in her is that she is very outgoing and social now. She is also extremely active! This kid never stops from the time she gets up until the time she goes to bed. Another change is that she actually asks to go to bed now. She reaches a point and while Amy is rocking her or I am reading to her, she starts pointing to her crib. We continue to be amazed at her progress. Her AV Therapists also have commented on how well she is doing and how she seems to be showing some signs of actually being a little ahead of expectations. Of course we have nothing to gauge her by so to hear that is great news. She does not go back to Dr. Bauer until late June. Everything seems to be just fine medically. Emma has also been extremely affectionate lately. She wants to hug, kiss, and be held a lot. The one thing that is troubling us is that she likes to take the coil to her implant off while Amy is driving and put it in her mouth. She has already lost one in the car!!! But that is covered under the warranty. Anyway, things are great and getting better!!!