3 weeks Post Activation Update

Briggs has been activated for 3 weeks already! The time has gone quickly.

Things Briggs is doing...

* He is definitely hearing and responding to sounds in many different ways.

* He is babbling A LOT more than he ever used to.

* We are working on "verbalizing" the action and seeing if he does it w/out "seeing" the action. Yesterday our speech pathologist was leaving after his teaching visit and I was telling him to wave "bye-bye" (w/out showing him how we wave). I kept saying it and he started waving to her! That was exciting.
* I posted that he did this in a previous post but again yesterday Beth heard him say "uh oh" when the pillow fell off the couch. It wasn't completely crisp like when we say it but it definitely sounded like uh oh.

My Sisters!

Raynah, Maria, Melissa and I

Myself and Melissa (Bride-to-Be)

This past weekend we had a bachelorette party for my friend Melissa. It was SO great and relaxing!! We stayed in a nice hotel in the Old Market. We went out to dinner and had some drinks and talked for hours. Melissa, Raynah, Maria and I have been friends for over 15 years. As a group we have been through a lot and are SO fortunate to have each other. Raynah, Maria and I are all married with a total of 9 kiddos between the 3 of us. Melissa will be adding to that number sometime in the future. Maria will be celebrating her 10th wedding anniversary this summer and Raynah will be celebrating her 9th!

I LOVE these girls! They are my best friends... they are my sisters!!

1st Pre-Op for Surgery #2 and Sound Booth Testing

We had Briggs pre-op for his left ear C.I. surgery yesterday. It was a very fast appt. b/c we just went through this so it was pretty cut and dry. Briggs ears look fantastic with no fluid and as long as he stays healthy we're right on track for his surgery to occur April 27th. I just want it over with!!! Please pray that Briggs will stay healthy!!!! I had the "put Briggs in a bubble for the next 2 weeks" talk with our daycare provider this morning. :-) She is probably so tired of me giving her that speech but I don't want to have to reschedule this surgery and he's been getting all these minor, random viruses lately. So he and I had a talk the other day and he agreed to stay healthy from here on until after his surgery.
After his pre-op we headed to the C.I. building for more testing. They moved his 3rd map (which was technically the 5th they've given him) to the 1st and set him up with 2 new ones. They feel very confident that we are very close to where we need to be so that was reassuring. Yesterday in the sound booth he consistently responded up to 40 decibels, which is a very soft speaking level (whispering is 20 decibels). It was truly amazing to see him consistently respond to sound! We're still trying to find the right "map" or volume for him so we'll probably move to the 2nd map in the next couple days to try it out and see if he's comfortable. We go back on his birthday (May 6th) for his left ear activation and at that time they'll do sound booth testing on his right ear again to make sure we're on track with his maps.
Then we headed back to Lincoln for his teaching visit. We learned some great new activities to do with him and we're excited to start those. Usually he's all about playing and has a very good attention span but yesterday he was not to into it. He had too many appts.

Happy Easter! and other misc.

Easter Morning
Easter Morning
Easter Morning

Easter Morning

Saturday at Grandpa and Grandma's House

Saturday at Grandpa and Grandma's House

Easter Egg Hunt w/ my cousins Kaylei and Shawn

Easter Egg Hunt at Grandpa and Grandma's

Trying to get ahold of the Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny came!

Easter Egg Hunt and Grandpa and Grandma's

Briggs Easter Basket

Decorating Easter Cookies the weekend before Easter

This is what I was doing while my sister and mommy were dying eggs!

Elli dying Easter Eggs when she was sick with Influenza

Elli and her eggs while she was sick

We had a great Easter!! Friday morning Briggs had the stomach flu but it was a very mild case and it only lasted 24 hours. Saturday was the family trip to the Omaha Zoo. The weather was gorgeous and we had a great time. However, I left my camera in the car! Luckily, my mom had her's but we didn't realize it until half way through. I have no pictures to post on the zoo outing. After the zoo we went back to my parents and grilled hamburgers and the kids did an Easter egg hunt. We just relaxed and enjoyed the nice weather.

Sunday morning Elli woke up and went to the living room to see what the Easter Bunny left and did her Easter egg hunt at home before we went to church. She was SO excited and it's always priceless to see the look on your kids' faces during times like these. Elli colored a Cinderella picture for the Easter bunny and she made me write him a note that said,

"Dear Easter Bunny- Please do not take my picture home. Please don't touch it and just leave it on the living room rug. Please just look at it. Happy Easter!"

It was addorable!!

We were so rushed that I was able to get pictures of the kids separately but not together. I may have to dress them up again so I have a picture of their 1st Easter together. After church we went out to breakfast. The rest of the day I did stuff around the house and went over to my brother and sister-in-laws with the kids to hang out. It was a good day!

Briggs woke up this morning at 1:45 and I made him a bottle and when I went to get him out of his crib he was on fire. GREAT!! I hoped that it was just from him being all snuggled up but no such luck. He was pretty much up all night. He is home with dad and has an appt. today at 1:30. Hopefully it's a virus and I'm pretty confident it is but please pray it is just a virus b/c if he has to be put on an antibiotic then surgery will be postponed and we don't want that! I'm just SO ready for my kids to be healthy! Luckily, they are both rarely sick and when they are it's always a very mild case but it still is no fun for any of us and it just seems like they both have had these little bugs lately! I have missed SO much work between all of Briggs ear appts. and surgery and them being sick. I'll be happy when the illnesses clear and his surgery is over with!

Tomorrow we have a pre-op with Briggs surgeon. His 2nd surgery is only 2 weeks away and hopefully he can stay healthy! We also have more C.I. testing done so I'm excited for that. Then we come home and have a teaching visit. Tomorrow will be a busy day!

1st Post-Activation Teaching Visit

We had Briggs 1st post-activation teaching visit on Tuesday. It was exciting to start learning what we need to do with him. We learned a fun game with homemade shakers and he loved that game. He's definitely showing responses to certain things but I don't feel they're super consistent. With that being said, we don't know if his response is actually to the sound or just because. We think it's a combination of both. Briggs is a pretty vocal little guy so he's going to be harder to read. We're only a week into it though and all of this takes A LOT of patience. Plus he's on his 6th map already. The good news with that... we knew after 24 hours that the 1st three they set him up with (which were at the quietest levels) weren't loud enough for him so they moved his 3rd (which is the one he showed response to during his 2nd activation appt. ) to the 1st and set him up with 2 more. Now he's on that 3rd one. He's shown response to the last 4 maps but we keep moving up to test the waters and he isn't uncomfortable with any of them. We go back on Tues. to report what we've observed. I have a lot of questions because this whole map thing is SO confusing to me! I get it, I just don't get it... I know that makes no sense to those reading this but it makes sense to me. :-) I'm also interested to see what he's responding to and get the "professionals" opinion. At this point and always we have to trust the professionals and they are happy with where he is 1 week post activation. We will essentially have 3 to 4 teaching visits every week for Briggs. Two at our house and one to two at daycare. It's going to be a very busy couple years. :-)
Next week is also his pre-op for his 2nd surgery. I'm not looking forward to surgery but also excited to get it over with!
I haven't posted anything on Elli for quite some time. I HOPE to remember my camera tomorrow to put her Easter cookie decorating and Easter egg dying pictures up. She is the best little girl!! She's SO good to Briggs and such a mature, good girl! We are so lucky to have such great kids.

Activation Day #2

Yesterday's appointment was GREAT! We received great information and they did more testing. Briggs programs or maps are very flat which is a great thing. That just basically means that his nerve is responding equally to all pitches. Briggs showed response to sounds which was caught on video so we're VERY excited to go back and watch that! They did sound booth testing and he's responding to voices!! Of course he is not turning to sound and won't for quite a while (every child is different but this should happen sometime within 6 months post activation). This first month is all about finding the right map or program (volume) for him. With Briggs they put his headpiece on and hook it up to a computer. They test the electrodes and his nerve response to all pitches. His nerve is responding to all the pitches and at a flat program. What this basically means is that Briggs can hear everything. It's just a matter of his brain learning that he's hearing and then learning what he is hearing. It isn't near as "simple" as I just explained it and we have a long yet EXCITING road ahead of us and his brain has a lot of learning to do. There is SO much more detail to all of this and I'd be happy to explain it more and to the best of my knowledge if anyone wants to call me about it. We go back again in 2 weeks to do more testing!!

Activation Day #1!

What an exciting day for us!! The day started out with a trip to the doctor for Elli. She had been running a fever since last Thursday night, hardly would eat anything and developed a bad cough. So finally I called the doctor yesterday right at 8:00 and was able to get her in at 8:50. She has/had influenza. She was vaccinated so this must have been a different strain. She remained fever free all day yesterday and went back to daycare this morning.
Briggs activation appointment was a little disappointing for us but the day ended great! He was scheduled for x-rays, his post-op and activation all at 1:00. Those went perfect and it's positioned perfectly in his cochlea and right up to his nerve. We LOVE Dr. Lusk!! The x-rays and the post-op took an hour so we didn't get to the activation until 2:00. I assumed we'd be allowed 2 hours for his activation but once we were in the car at 3:00 it dawned on us that they needed to be done by 3:00. That would explain the audiologist talking a mile a minute and really rushing through the process. She was VERY nice and informative but it felt VERY rushed. Basically two hours worth of information and testing was done in one hour. Parents only get that "moment" once and we were very disappointed that is was so rushed. So what they did was put Briggs external device on his head and then hooked him up to the computer. Since babies can't tell you what they're hearing and if it's too loud or too soft they have to test based on the nerve response through the computer. The great news... all the electrodes are working and responding like they're supposed to be and his nerve responded to all the pitches - which is best case scenario. They programmed or "mapped" 3 maps for him. The first being very conservative and soft, the second still being very conservative but a little louder and the third still being very conservative but a little louder. They only tested his response yesterday on the first map with the volume half way. He showed no response. We weren't disappointed that he didn't respond b/c we were prepared for that and know that Boystown is extremely conservative when activating people. We were disappointed that they only tried on the first map. So she continued to show us all the equipment and gave us our homework. We were to go home and turn up the volume and watch for response and if there was none then turn it to the second map and gradually turn up the volume and if we see nothing to turn it to the third map and gradually turn it up. So we went home and did just that. We noticed some things but didn't feel they were consistent so we kept moving along. We were on the third map and Briggs was sitting about 4 ft. from me and between us was a plastic doctor kit of Elli's. He had taken everything out of it. I picked up a little plastic cup of Elli's and tossed it in the bucket. He jumped and got a very confused, scared look on his face (a mix between a deer in the headlights and about to cry). So I took it out and tossed it in there a second time. He did the exact same thing, jumped again and got an even sadder, scared look on his face. So I did a third time and he jumped again and started bawling. It was AMAZING to FINALLY see him react to sound!!!! I can't even describe what that felt like. We know everything is working in there, it's just a matter of finding the right map or volume for him and then of course his brain adjusting to all this change and figuring out what's going on. It's a process that does not happen over night and takes time and patience. The next couple years are going to packed with teaching him but it'll all pay off in the end. So we go back today and I have A LOT of questions!! I'll post again tomorrow. I emailed the media guy to see if he could video today's appt. as well because I want to catch him responding on video. Hopefully we have more time to spend testing him today!!