Christmas video!

Enjoy!

More appointments...

We just returned from Edmonton today, back from a weekend of appointments, shopping and visiting. We had 2 appointments for Sienna.

1. Lung Specialist- We were told that Sienna’s airways are always constricted which means it takes a lot out of her to breathe right. This did not come too much as a surprise; thus the reason I requested an appointment with a lung specialist. Sienna is always sick. Since a young age, she seems to get a cold easily and often which usually led to bronchiolitis, vomiting when she coughed, inhalers to calm her breathing, and many trips to the hospital. While we were there, he noticed her sides were in-drawing meaning she was having hard time breathing. I could not see this, in my eyes, she did not have a runny nose nor a cough therefore she was healthy. She did get an allergy test and surprisingly she is allergic to cats, dogs, dust mites and feathers. Well now that we know her airways are fragile, we must fix it. Because of her CMV, she has poor muscle tone which he says is contributing to the constricted airways. Therefore we must continue doing exercises to strengthen her trunk tone. Second, he put her on QVAR, a corticosteroid oral inhaler and ventilin daily until she gets stronger. We will return to see him in 4 months.
   
   2-Endocrinologist (Hormone Specialist)- CMV does cause poor growth, however, our pediatrician at the Glenrose recommended that we see a hormone specialist to make sure that we are not overlooking what could be a factor in Sienna’s poor growth. So after a detailed review of Sienna’s history and our history; he came to the conclusion that Sienna’s poor weight gain is not due to her growth hormones but due to her having congenital CMV and to the fact that Kevin and I are small people. We return to see him in 6 months. According to their chart, with her weight and height of that day, she is actually gaining at a faster rate. Yeah! Let’s keep up the trend! She weighs 20lbs. 13oz..

We had a fantastic visit with my cousins, Darcy and Lisa, and our kids played, played, played. They were great hosts and took very good care of us, thank-you!

We also had a chance to visit some friends who we’ve been in touch with since May 09. A mutual friend introduced us because their daughter, Allison, just received bilateral cochlear implants last spring. Since then we’ve been in touch by phone and email so we decided to finally put a face to their friendly voices. We had a great time; it was such a pleasure to meet them and to share our stories.

Seeing that it is -40C here in northern Alberta, yes -40C, which marks the beginning of our cold winter, I am very happy that our next Edmonton appointment ( 4.5 hours away) is in mid February…. hopefully, after the brutal cold has past.

All I want for Christmas … I already have!!

There’s something different about Christmas this year. I couldn’t quite figure it out until a moment of gratitude swept through me about a week ago.

It’s not about the gifts, it’s not about the stress, it’s not about the go, go go like this time of the year usually brings. This year is different for me because really the only thing that matters is our health and our family. It will be exactly 1 year on December 19th, that we found out that Sienna was deaf. What an early Christmas gift that was!! As I take a look back, I cannot believe what our family has gone through. Today, my little girl is hearing and she is walking (not 100% but it is official), and that itself is a blessing, a miracle, a gift from God. I really don’t want anything else.

I just can’t come around to the entire gift giving thing. It’s just things. Can’t we just be grateful at this time of the year for the gift of health, the gift of family, the gift of laughter? Please take this moment to really be thankful for those gifts which surrounds you. How do we teach a 2 year old and a 5 year old that Christmas is not about the gifts it’s about family? With our actions and ours words, I hope that they see it as we see it.

All I want for Christmas... I already have!

The gift of hearing!

The gift of a healthy family!

Sienna's on fire!

Just when we get discouraged,

Sienna comes around and makes us proud.

This last month has blown us away.

Her language skills are developing.

She surprises us everyday.

Everyday, I add a word to her receptive language.

She attempts to repeat difficult sounds.

She has about 15 speech sounds

and about 30 receptive words.

When I sing, she tries too, it is so neat.

We had an audiologist appointment this week at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital and they were amazed at how well Sienna is doing. She is just about 4 months post activation and she has a great start on her language development. We did a sound booth test and she is hearing sounds at a 15 db and speech sounds at a 25 db.

Sienna is doing so well because of 2 reasons,

1) She is a sponge, she loves to imitate, she is absorbing it all





2) Her older sister Rylee, she does everything Rylee does, she listens to her, she mimics her every move.

Rylee is my #1 language tool.

Rylee is her #1 idol.