As the summer rolls...

Since I last posted Wyatt has gotten to a point where he wants to argue and fight us with everything, We can tell  him over and over again, no, he sometimes answer but I have to, or I need to. In reality he doesn't need to or have to, he just wants his way.

This summer I have kept him busy. He works with his PCA for 1 1/2 hours Monday - Thursday, then he will go to Backus Kids Club, where they have a structured agenda. Every day he ask me what he has and what we will do after that thing is done. I love that fact that he is asking questions and wants to know, but really sometimes just watching what is going on around you is better. I know that is what I do when I am in a situation where I can't hear very well.

In about 2 wks he will go on a trip  to the other side of the usa. He will be going to Florida with Papa and GG. I am very nervous for him, but at the same time it will be good for him to be away from us for a bit.

For awhile now there have been concerns about his weight. I think they may send him back to us with some weight, which is great, but at the same time its him learning that he can't eat whenever he wants and to stick to meal plans.

The hardships

There are days like today, when it makes me wonder how much Wyatt is hearing. I ask him all the time, are you listening to me? I know he can hear, but is it really that hard to listen to what you are told to do? All day, I kept asking him, are you listening to me? Is mommy getting mad? He tells me yes, so i ask, what do you have to do? Listen. I know hes a good kid and is bound to have lots to do, and look at, but really is it too much to ask for him to listen?
He also has this habit when we leave or go up for the night he has to be first, so i started making him go last, i asked him, do you always go first in school? he says no, so why do you have to go first here? There was  a couple of day when he seem to have grown up, like he was different, more like a six year old.

Wondering.....

I have been wondering lately if we made the right choice with Wyatt and his implant.
When he gets older, will he resent us for taking the choice from him or will he thank us? We he make the choice to continue to wear them or will he choose to live life as a deaf person, knowing that the implants are forever inside him.
What profession will he choose, what sport will he decide t o play. Will he let the fact that he may carry a gene to pass on to his kids stop him from having kids? Will his spouse love him and accept that he may not always hear her and will try to understand what she is saying. Will his kids understand?

Been awhile

I know its been awhile since i posted. I have been thinking about all that Wyatt has gone thru, and see him making leaps and bounds. I wonder if when he gets older, will he let his hearing get to him. Meaning will he hold himself back, not pursue his dreams, just because he can't hear like a "normal" person. I know that is what i did. If you met me on the street and didn't know me, you wouldn't know that i have a hearing problem. I hide it, behind long hair, yet i say i want to have a short hair cut. It stopped me from playing sports for the fear of not hearing my teammates.
When i am in a crowd, i tend to keep to myself, again because i can hear them, but not always what they are saying. It took me a long time to finally work the courage to waitress, and i am glad i did, i thought i was a good one.
Which is funny i say this, thinking now, every job that i have had has been in the public eye, DQ, White Castle, Blockbuster, Housekeeping, Forestland, Pizza Barn, and now Kantor. Granted with my job now, i don't see many customers, but do answer the phone.

I just really want Wyatt and even Austin to reach for their dreams, and go for what they want and not let anything stand in their way.

The almost moment of truth

There is a pic on the link that i shared, where Wyatt is sitting in a wagon. On that day, his audiologist came over and was going to test the electrodes to see what was responding and what wasn't. The Dr told us that he has a 60/40 chance. She told us that while shes testing, it will sound like a lot of clicking. Well she turned on her part and Wyatt started looking over his shoulder, on the right side. I started crying. It was a sign that the placement was good. She did tell us that even though hes responding to that noise, it when we have the official hookup that will tell us for sure.

We left the hospital a few days later, with an appointment set up for a month for the hookup.  Well a few days or a week later, we found out we were pregenant with austin.  The day of the hook up came and I had my mom, and Francie with me. The audiologist told us that when its turned on, they do 1 of 3 things:
1)Cry
2)Scream,
3) Or nothing.

Can you guess what wyatt did? He screamed and cried. And so did momma., and nana, and GG. It took us a few more minuets to try to get a level where he felt ok. On the ride home it was all talking and saying his name. When we got home, papa and Aunt Kelly were there, and the first thing he did was jump up and down, and pointed to his ear, with a surprise look on his face. LOL that was the highlight for a few days.

Just a thought

Thru all of this, besides my husband, and family members, all over, Francie was a rock. It really helped us all that she was there and stayed till we came home. I know that Will wished he could have been in the ICU room more with Wyatt, but it was very hard for him. I really am grateful and thankful that she was there. I really don't know how we, or more myself would have done it.
She made the comment that, when it comes to hospitals, she is the one in her family that everyone wants by their side, and after it all, I can see it.

A letter from GG

Hey Wyatt- this is great-grandma Francie writing to say hi. It is 4:30 am and you and i, along with 2 little girls Joclyn and Skye and 2 nurses (yours is name Lisa) are hanging out here in the pediatric ICU. You are sound asleep, been asleep for 5 days healing from your 2nd surgery to place a cochlear implant behind your right ear. You aren't easy to keep asleep, you've been fighting the drugs every step of the way and you have a breathing tube down your throat. a feeding/draining tube down your nose, a blood pressure cuff around your ankle, an oxygen monitor on your big toe of your other foot and 2 IV access needles in your left are with 7 different things flowing into you, plus antibiotics, plus things to help you have a bowel movement, since nothing happened in that department for 5 days or so. We figure your pretty uncomfortable. you had a catheter in until yesterday, bet you were glad to get rid of that.
Tomorrow morning you will be going down for your 3rd surgery. "the lord willing and the creek don't rise" And there are so many people praying for you and Dr. Rimmel and the success of this surgery.
Your mom and dad love you so much, it is tearing them apart to see you this way, only the hope tinged with belief that the surgery will benefit in the long run, and enable you to hear gives the courage to stand by and allow you to go through this experience.
I am so proud of them, it would have been so easy for them to decide to pass on this chance for you, it was the hard choice to decide to give you this opportunity, I love you. And feel honored to be here with you tonight, whatever happens, whatever the results, you are a perfect human being, a 100,000 miles and hour boy and a quick learner who spreads love and joy wherever you go. Time to go to sleep now, but remember you are loved, and i, along with ALL your family feel blessed that you were born, good-night for now my precious boy
Love
Great grandma.

The First continued.....

So, the second surgery was a late night one. The doctor had asked if it was ok to do a Lumbar drain. That is where they put a tube in the base of the spine, to help with the excess fluid that is building and having no where to go, which led to him have to be put in a medical induced coma.
When that one was done, he did another scan to see where the placement was, and was not happy with it. He then asked if we would be ok with him going in and positioning it a different way and making it curl, as when the other 2 times, he didn't make it curl. He also said that if we leave it, there is a possibility that it may not work. We agreed, and he had is third for the one ear.

It was so hard and the worst thing a parent to see. This one ended up being a success. The placement was good and looked promising. And if you know us and know Wyatt, then you know that it worked.
The poor guy was out for about 10 days, for some reason he leaked a lot of fluid. The good thing about him being so young was that he is able to produce more.


When it was finally time to wean him off the drugs and wake him up, it was surreal. All he did for 24 hours was smile and look around, he wanted to get up and play. But do to being out for so long, he lost some muscle tone, which when we got home he had to do some physical therapy.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.hearingcentral.com/images/cochlea1.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.hearingcentral.com/howtheearworks.asp&h=336&w=600&sz=46&tbnid=krdrJM8die6-YM:&tbnh=71&tbnw=127&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcochlea%2Bpicture%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=cochlea+picture&docid=jSaB1Gpaz7qoEM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=agqWT-u9Jcnf6QGt-7XQDg&ved=0CD4Q9QEwAg, is what a normal one looks like. Now picture missing walls and holes. That is Wyatt.

The First.

In June of 2008 we were able to have Wyatt's surgery. Now from what I was told, if all went well we would only be there for 5 days. He went in the morning, and it was suppose to be a 1 1/2 to 2 hours surgery, it was 3 hours. He ended up needing a special machine that would allow him to see the placement better.

The same day, in fact hours after the was up and walking around, and playing, it was so cute. He had a cup like thing on his ear and a band around his head to help put pressure on his ear. The one thing we had to be careful for was the fluid. He is like me, when I was 15 I think, I had surgery to try to correct my hearing, and as soon as the doctor started to drill, the fluid that surrounds your brain, started to leak.

OK, let me go farther on me. I was elected to try to fix my hearing, and what the doctor wanted to do was find one of the bones in my ear and replace it with a man made bone. Well it didn't work. I ended up leaking for 5 days. To this day, my equilibrium is messed up.


Back to Wyatt. We had the doctor come in a few hours later when he got moved to another hospital for recovery. It turns out that he had developed a fluid pack on the side of his head. We ended up having to have a late night surgery.

Sorry I have to stop. Attached is the link if you would like to see a few of the pics from his first surgery. I will go into more later. Its hard right now.http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150784011063162.460271.719808161&type=3&l=4f22be1f88

Challenges

When raising a deaf child as well as a hearing child you come across some challenges. In a day, and I think I should count, I say "Wyatt" often.  I know that he is trying to take all the sounds in and learn what he can, but at the same time, he knows his name and should respond to it. lol. With his brother, he sees Wyatt doing something and feeds off of him. Oh did I mention that Wyatt is also ADHD, must have slipped my mind. So on top of the hearing, we have an attention problem.

But I have gotten ahead of myself. When he was 6 months old he was fitted for hearing aids. We got them red, and for those who wear aids, we know that color matters, I don't know how many times I have set mine down and spent some time looking for them. With the aids, we were told that it was helping and he did pick up some words, but I'm not sure if it was due to the aids, or the sign language we started. All due to a long time family friend, Roxanne Skostad-Ditsch.

When he was 1 1/2, his audiologist made the suggestion we try another route, as well as did Roxanne. The next step was to see if he qualified for Cochlear Implants. That was a job. He had to be sedated twice for the CT scan, once here in the falls and once in the cities. That was very hard, I cried.

The Begining

In the middle of 2003 I first laid eyes on my future husband. A year later we finally met up, 4 months later he asked me to marry him. In September 2005 we go married, as well as learned we were pregnant with our first child. Now keep in mind that hearing problems run on my side of the family. My mom, it was due to illness, and my father was born that way. My husband knew the possibility that we could have a deaf or hard of hearing child. On April 15, 2006 Wyatt Robert Randal made his debut. It is my understanding that in the state of Minnesota, it is required for newborns to have a hearing test. Wyatt had 2 and failed them both. Let me tell, the first 3 months of him being colicky was horrible, (best time of my life). At 6 months he was fitted for hearing aids. HAHAHAHAHAHA.