August 2012

August was a busy month!
As you know we did have PK's cochlear implant surgery this month. The previous post was all about that. He continued to do well for the rest of August and was a champ.
Patrick has finally gotten all the beginning teeth, he now has 8 teeth, crawling like a pro, cruising ALL OVER the place, and is regularly taking two to three steps at a time. He'll be walking soon.

My grandfather's funeral was the beginning of August. I was sad I couldn't go, it really broke my heart. I think only one other cousin was not able to go (and my family is *HUGE*). My siblings were great and did give me a detailed account of the funeral, pictures of the program, and my dad sent me a copy of it as well as a copy of the movie of pictures they had of him playing at the funeral home. That alone helped me reach some closure. My grandfather was pretty much my second father. I spent many many summers at my grandparents' home. I have so many memories of him. The number one thing I will always remember is how he cherished, adored and loved my grandmother. I hope Bryan and I can make it that long and love each other that much then as well.

We had a chance to go to the a National's baseball game with some friends. Unfortunately, I managed to lose one of Patrick's hearing aids there. At least it was only a week before the cochlear implant surgery :)

The day after PK's surgery, Bryan took KB to a fair so I could take care of super fussy and tired (rightfully so) PK.

Patrick has learned a lot of cueing in terms of receptive language. In the following video, whenever I'm talking, I'm also cueing. Remember, he hasn't been activated yet, and already had his surgery....so he really can't hear a thing.

This month was also Bryan's birthday. We had a bunch of friends over, and it was a blast. Our friend Jenny made an awesome carrot cake that everyone loves. Bryan really only gets this cake once a year since I do not like raisins, AT ALL, so this is his time to have one of his favorite cakes. We were able to get him some cologne for his birthday. We went out to the Frontier Museum for his birthday as well, and KB and PK loved being able to get out and play while we enjoyed reading about the different homes.

Patrick's Cochlear Implant Surgery

This was sure a stressful past week. Bryan called on August 3rd to find out where our insurance stood in terms of approving Patrick's pre-authorization for the CI surgery. It was still pending, and I was very nervous because we had received a letter from the insurance that as it stands, it would be denied since it was not a medical necessity in their terms. They needed more information, so Bryan made a few phone calls to get that to happen. They told us that they would contact us on Tuesday. Tuesday came along, and Bryan had to call them. The insurance said they got the information they needed, but still had to review it. If they didn't call back by Thursday, then we needed to call them and they would expedite it. Thursday came along, and we hadn't heard from them. Bryan called insurance in the morning, and they said they would have an answer by 9 PM EST. Talk about last minute, we were scheduled to be at the hospital at 5:30 Friday! Fortunately Bryan called the hospital and insurance around 5:00, and it had been approved. There was a huge sigh of relief when that happened!
Now we just had to scramble to find someone to watch KB, and let him stay the night, find a hotel room, eat dinner, pack and go. Fortunately we had some very kind church members help us out with KB, and allowed him to stay at their place. We stayed in a hotel close by because I did not want to have to deal with an hour and a half drive at 3 AM, with a hungry/tired baby as I couldn't feed him after midnight.
Patrick handled the no eating after midnight quite well, and was his happy self until about 10 minuets before they took him back for the surgery when he started getting over tired and grumpy. We were very fortunate.
We were taken to the pre-op room where they took his vitals, had the surgeon talk to his, the nurse talk to us, the OR nurse talk to us and the anesthesiologist talk to us. Changed him, and had Bryan go back with Patrick (only one parent can go in the room with the patient). We chose Bryan as I knew I would probably cry as soon as they did the anesthesia on him, I almost cried at the tear duct probe surgery, and this was a much bigger surgery.

In the waiting room before going back to pre-op

Just about to leave to go the operating room. They had to use a shoe cover for a hat for Patrick . Everyone thought it was cute/hilarious

We then went out to the waiting room by the post-op care...and waited. They had a tv screen that showed when the surgery had started, and when it was over. They gave you a number, and you could see when it was done.

Patrick's was by far the longest surgery out of everyone there, he's the one in the middle.

Bryan was very tired, but there was no place to sleep, so he went to the car and took a nap there. I stayed in the waiting room and watched synchronized swimming. A lot of hospital workers went back and forth in between in front of me, and every time someone would comment on how crazy synchronized swimming is. I have to agree.
The surgery was supposed to take 5-6 hours, it ended up only taking 4! In fact, Bryan had woken up, we decided to get some lunch before they would be done as we had expected them to take another hour. They called us back just as soon as we got in line for food.
We went to post-op and saw Patrick fast asleep.

They had an humidifier in front of him to help him breathe, as his throat would be a little swollen from having a tube down his throat during the surgery. 

I think we were in the post-op room for only an hour instead of the anticipated 2 hours. Patrick really was a champ and did great. The surgeon said the anatomy of his head/ears was just perfect and made it easy, and there was a full insertion. There were no problems. That was huge relief. Patrick had taken to one nurse, when he woke up he kept waving and smiling for her! He would not wave at anyone else but her, it was very cute. While I fed him, and we waited to be cleared to take him home, we heard another kid come into the recovery room. He had to be put under for the doctors to retrieve a popcorn kernel from his ear. Apparently he was trying to do a magic trick to make it disappear....into his ear? The things kids do!

We were given instructions for post-op care, cleared to go and we left on our way home! It took a very long time to get home as there were two accidents on the freeway that severely backed up traffic. Once we got past that, it was easy driving.

I was worried about his big head fitting in his car seat. Turned out okay, he just did not look comfortable. 

Bryan went and got Kiernan from our friends. Kiernan didn't do too well sleeping at someone else's house, which is understandable as he's never had to before where it wasn't a relatives AND we weren't there. He was so tired he fell asleep in the car on the way home. We put him to bed for an hour, woke him up, and then he went back to bed. It was very sad because he did wake up in the middle of the night while I was putting Patrick back to sleep, and cried out for us and said he wanted us to be home.

Patrick was very excited to see Kiernan when he did get home, despite his tired/grumpiness. Patrick really did do quite well over all. He wasn't happy, but he wasn't grumpy either. He was just....there. The next day he was back to his noisy, crawling, standing self. He wasn't able to roll from his back to his stomach to get up to crawl because of the bandages on his head, but other than that, no problems. He was just more tired more often. I don't think we could've asked for a better recovery.

Our cat seemed to sense Patrick wasn't himself, and was following him around like a dog.

Being his happy self the next day.

We were able to take the bandages off on Sunday, cleaned the incisions, and Patrick showed a major improvement in going back to being himself. He definitely did not want that bandage on anymore. The incisions were still there, no bleeding, no discharge to worry about. Everything's been going great so far. His head is still VERY swollen, in fact I think he looks a little like Frankenstein from Young Frankenstein. He has some bruises on his face from the facial nerve monitor. Other than that, things look awesome.

Swollen head, some sores from the bandage being so tight on his head, and ears stick out. This is all normal after surgery. Though you can see his pretty much back to normal, eating just fine, pointing, talking etc. 

We have his post op appointment with the surgeon on the 23rd, then his first activation date is September 14th, two days before his birthday. We're excited and can't wait.