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Monday, November 2, 2009

November already?

November 2. How did that happen? Though the temperature being in the high 80's and lack of turning leaves cause fall to seem like a foreign subject, the reality of it is Thanksgiving is 24 days away.

Gabriella is doing so well with her speech. She is making a TON of sounds, and the goals in therapy right now are to start combining those sounds to make words, and teach her to use those words purposefully and correctly. She is using Mom, Papa, Wow, More, Baby and Ow in context. It is my own personal goal for her to have 20 accurate words by Christmas, using them in the right context. Therapy is more an accessory now, rather than how it was our main tool inpatient. We are doing much more learning at home, and she is starting to not rebel when it comes to Mommy teaching her sounds and words, thank goodness! Her right arm usage is slowly but surely coming back. We finally got her OT schedule together and she will be meeting with 2 separate people, alternating weeks. They see it as a problem, but I think it will be good for her to get different styles and techniques. She's like me, she needs variety and options. Hopefully she can get a decent amount of beneficial usage out of that arm eventually. Some days are better than others, and I notice when that arm gets tired, she pulls it up to her abdomen and holds it there. BUT we are faithful it will come back!

Gabriella is on a schedule to change her Insuflon catheter for her injections once a week- on Sundays. Last Sunday, we put one in and by Tuesday it was looking bad. We were noticing a bulge at the end of it, and by Wednesday a small bit of blood at the site. By Thursday, the bulge was huge, she was bruising excessively and the site was bleeding badly. We had to take it out that night. I tried to install a new one, and put it in too shallow due to her moving too much. Talk about a blow to my heart. It was super late, we kept her up so the Lidocane could kick in and I failed getting it in. We were forced to give her the injection in her leg (terrible because her biggest fear is still needles) and try again in the morning. Thank goodness, I got it in Friday morning just fine, but it still broke my heart I poked her and it was useless, and we had to put her through getting that shot. Hopefully only 8 more ports!

The kids are adjusting very well to living at my mom's. They share a room, and much to my surprise there is very little issues with that! They are doing SO much better with Harley, my mom's yellow Lab. We have managed to sell a few more things that went into storage that we didn't need to keep through this transition.

We have cardiology tomorrow. The basic appointment for Gabriella.... EKG, echo and see the doctor. I am just praying SO hard there are no negative changes!!!!

2 comments:

The Simmons Family said...

I'm SO happy to hear that Gabriella is improving!! The Lovenox shots are brutal.

We missed you by a day at Cardiology.. we were there today! Praying for some GREAT news!!

unzen said...

Thanks for the update. I look every day to see how you all are. I know things are busy but just to let you know i am thinking and praying for the whole family.