The Courson Crew

Hello World!

2011-08-13T14:00:00.003-04:00

Hi all! Sooo sorry it's been so long since the last post. So much has happened since last year. On Sept. 12, 2010 we lost my husband's grandfather(raised him), due to a surgical procedure that went terribly wrong. This man was Bray's world and he had a realllly hard time with this. We also lost my grandfather(raised me) on May 7, 2011(Bray's birthday :( ), due to cirrhosis of the liver. It's been a rough time for both of our families.

This summer went by so fast! We took a vacation to St. Augustine, Fl. The kids had an awesome time. We stayed so busy with both of our grandmothers and the kids that Timmy and I didn't realize that school was starting in a blink of an eye.

With that said...the kids started back Aug. 2nd! Bray's in the 2nd grade and Mac is in kindergarten. :) I'm so proud of my "babies". I'm even more excited to announce that Bray has a sign interpreter this year! Bray really likes him and school has been going really smooth for him so far this year.

Happy school year to all of our friends all around that are just starting back!

Give and take

2010-08-24T23:27:00.003-04:00

I'm learning how to do this...b/c I'm just a straight forward person that wants the best that can be offered. Sometimes it just can't happen that way for various reasons. We're still working on getting everything settled for Bray at school. To make learning easier for him and help him in the best ways possible. Our school system has had cut backs, much like every school around the country. Also the area we live in just doesn't have the resources for Bray. So we're being creative and making the best of it.

Monday I observed Bray's classroom to see how he was doing. I took mental notes of things I liked and didn't. Today we had a meeting with all of Bray's teachers to talk about Monday and really explain PANDAS to Bray's new teachers. We came up with some new plans for reading and I'm looking forward to seeing how he does. On speech therapy days Bray won't have math homework. Instead it'll be sent home to do over the weekend, which will help with getting him to bed on time Tues. and Thurs. nights and give him a little break.

I'm patiently waiting to see signs that the antibiotic is working for Bray. Tonight was the best so far. He didn't fight to do his homework even though it was a long day due to teacher meeting and speech therapy. Teachers reported that he's been fine at school and now know what to really look for. I'm praying the antibiotic takes full effect this time.

I got a report that Ms. Mackenzee and a little girl in her class thought it would be fun to pull the fire alarm. Though the teacher said Kenzee was the one to push it up to stop it, she still got in trouble. We had a talk about why we don't touch the fire alarm and how important it is. Hopefully we won't have that problem again. Kids are so nosey and intrigued by everything! Slowly Kenzee is bringing home homework and is very proud to be sitting at the table working like a big girl like her big brother. I've been working with her on writing her name. Why I ever named her something so long I'll never know! Haha..poor kid. She must have finally decided that she's hungry at lunch b/c she's eating everything in her lunch box now. At first she was talking to much and was running out of time. :) I guess the newness of school may be wearing and she's falling into the routine.

Good day :)

2010-08-19T22:36:00.002-04:00

quick update:

Bray made a 100 on his 2nd spelling test! So proud of that guy!

He had an appt. with the audiologist today to have his ears mapped. It was true that his right was too loud and hurting his ear. His levels came way down, but all is well now and he is much happier.

He also had an appt with his new PANDAS doc. She decided to start him on azithromycin full dose for 2 weeks and then a continuing dose 2x a week for 3 months. If things dont get better then we will do a steroid burst. She ran some test today and we will be called with results later.

Its been a long day and Im off to bed! Good night folks!

Sometimes you just want to scream HELP!

2010-08-18T19:28:00.003-04:00

Where to begin??? I spent the first two weeks of school fighting for Bray's rights. Educating myself on our rights and laws. Speaking with a number of people about the situation. To accomplish not much of anything. Just know I'm still fighting... Bray was doing really great at school the first and 2nd week of school. He made a 90 on his first spelling test. He was suppose to be taken out of room for the test, but the teacher mistakenly give him the test in class. Which is awesome that he scored so well in class! He made an 84 on his sight word test. He's doing fantastic in math. That's his strongest subject. He's really struggling with reading, due to his comprehension of stories and words he has no meaning for. :( We're working on all this.

Bray was only on antibiotics for 2 weeks over the summer to control the PANDAS. Let me tell you. It was the worst summer of my life! Bray was at the worst we've ever seen him! I've been very worried about school starting and his specialist not returning our calls over the summer. I knew Bray was in one of his episodes and that this would be hard for him to start school. Everyday after school he comes home and has a huge emotional breakdown. We're not really sure why. If it's b/c he's held in his tics and been on his best behavior all day or if it's b/c he's exhausted from working so hard to listen, hear, and speak.

Finally after 2 weeks and a few days it happened. He lost it at school. On Tues. he refused to do his worksheet. When they finally talked him into doing it he refused to use a pencil and only would use a red crayon. They explained what happened in his parent/teacher notebook and sent the worksheet home along with a new one to be done correctly. That leads me to homework. This kid comes home with an AR book, classroom reading book, a math worksheet 3 nights a week, sight and spelling words to be gone over every night, and any classwork that we have to review with him, on top of speech therapy 2 days a week and working on 100 signs a week. :( Try doing all this with a child who's just HAD ENOUGH during the day and can't take anymore in the afternoon. It's been nearly impossible and I've gone to bed crying every single night almost it. r

He's been telling us his ears are broken and he can't hear us or that it's too loud and he can't wear them. Which both could be true due to the PANDAS and how it affects his cochlears and hearing. Or this could be just b/c he's sick of hearing what we've got to say and just wants peace. Though we all know Brayden HATES his cochlear implants. Always has. We have an appt. tomorrow with his audiologist to have his ears mapped and also an appt. with his new PANDAS doctor to start a new course of treatment. I'm looking forward to tomorrow!

Since school has started he's had an eval with the audiologist and his test scores came up half! She felt that if he was able to function better at the appt. he would have scored higher than that. We won't get into that right now. Let's just say we were lucky to get the test done due to behavior. His speech therapist is also doing an eval to see how far he's come since last year. Due to his inability to pay attention yest. we had to cut it short and couldn't finish the test. SO hopefully after tomorrow he'll be put on an antibiotic and start doing much better. If not....you all may just hear me SCREAM HELP!!!!! all over the country!

Mackenzee started pre-k this year and is doing awesome! She loves school and has made tons of friends. She's even taken a liking to two little boys. Watch out now! :) I feel so alone at home without the kids, but haven't really had a chance to enjoy it with everything going on with the school, meetings, and appts. Maybe soon things will chill out b/c I sure could use a moment of peace!

Vote for Project PANDAS!!!

2010-05-12T18:26:00.002-04:00

www.refresheverything.com/PANDAS

We are trying to get votes up to get us in the top 10 spot for the Pespsi Refresh Project. Currently we are in 25th place! We are in the running for $50,000 dollars towards research by Dr. Cunningham. This money will greatly help kids like my son with PANDAS. Please take a moment to create an account and vote. Vote everyday until the end of May. Thank you all so much!

Happy Birthday to my kids!

2010-05-07T15:25:00.002-04:00

My kids are now 4 and 6! Where did the time go? Mac's birthday was April 28 and she turned 4! Bray's birthday is today and he's 6! We had a birthday party for the kids along with their cousin Bailee last weekend. Today we had a field trip for Bray's class to the beach. He told me he had a beach birthday party at school. :)

Pics and updates to follow. :)

Our life these days...

2010-03-07T01:12:00.005-05:00

The kids at Aunt Jenni's helping put up corn.

Bray has been on and off antibiotics since Nov. We've found that azithromicin does the best for him in terms of his behavior getting better and the tics slowing. We recently found out that autoimmune disease and antibiotic usage(longterm) affects Bray's maps and hearing. Meaning that one minute his hearing will be 100% and the next it could be little to nothing. We're having to keep a close eye on his hearing. His maps can change without warning. At this point we don't really know what he's hearing from moment to moment. He's getting better about telling me when he can't hear though. This gave us a huge insight to why he still hasn't caught up with his spoken language. Since finding this out our audiologist suggested that we go back to total communication. We had an IEP meeting at the end of the year to make the changes to include total communication and ASL. We have a great IEP team. Bray finished up basketball season and earned himself a trophy. He's very proud of it and I'm very proud of him. Both kids played t-ball this year and got a trophy. We quickly learned that Kenzee is more the cheerleader and not so much the athlete. Kenzee will be starting school this year. She will be in pre-k. I had my first meeting with her teacher Thurs. This coming Thurs. is open house for both kids. School starts back Aug. 2nd. I couldn't be happier...I mean I'm so excited for them. ;) This has been the toughest summer so far. It's been really hard for Bray. For whatever reason Dr. T spaced out his contact with us to every other month. We've since found a holistic pediatrician that will work along side Dr. T and hopefully get Bray back on track. He hasn't been on antibiotics all summer and he's worse than ever. He's been extremely defiant, ADHD, and aggressive. He's not sleeping well at night b/c he's having such bad night terrors. Even when he crashes on the couch in the evening he's having them. :( I continue to learn as much as I can about PANDAS and how to help Brayden.

As for the summer.....We've spent much of it by the pool and a few trips to the beach. I was hoping to get Bray caught up on some things for school through the summer, but that's been impossible with his behavior. He also hasn't been in speech therapy all summer. I've done my best to work on speech as much as I can. This week we're taking both kids school shopping and that's all they've talked about. :) I hope everyone is enjoying their last days and weeks of summer. Thought it was a tough one for us, I still enjoyed having the kids home.

New Doctor

2010-02-09T19:26:00.004-05:00

We have a PANDAS specialist! A few weeks ago I stayed up all night emailing specialist. At 5 am I sent my last email to Dr. T. At 10: 30 am he personally called me back to inform me he wanted to help us with Bray. He was the only doctor to respond back! He actually wanted to help! He took down all of Bray's info and went on to question me about Kenzee. At the end of the telephone conversation he told me he would be emailing me scripts to get blood work done on both kids and a new antibiotic(azithromycin) to add to Bray's current antibiotic(augmentin). I didn't receive the email after a few days so I called Dr. T b/c I was thinking he wrote the email address down wrong. He told me his wife and kid was sick with the flu and he'd send it soon. I waited a week. I still didn't get it and this time no answer back. I thought, oh no! He's changed his mind about helping us with Bray. 2 weeks and I still had heard nothing. I call today to see what's going on and finally get an answer. His whole family became ill with the flu and he hadn't been in the office. So finally after two weeks I get the email today. I have to print off the scripts and take them to our pediatrician in the morning so she can order the blood work for our local lab to draw. I am soooo happy that we're back on track! I was scared that he was scared away by everything going on with Bray. Just the opposite, Bray is a case he's never seen before b/c he's deaf and has the PANDAS. He understands how hard it is for us b/c of Bray's communication issues and having the PANDAS. PANDAS also causes speech issues. At this point Dr. T is thinking this is why Bray's speech has yet to catch up. I'm excited to be working with such a great doctor!

The meeting that Bray's teachers went to at the Clarke School went great. The school gave his teachers new strategies on how to work with him. I'm so glad they made the trip and learned something new.

Update

2010-01-15T23:57:00.003-05:00

We have currently gotten our pediatrician on board with treatment for PANDAS. She's learning as much as she can in a short period of time. Between both me and the Dr. researching we're doing the best we can until we can get to the specialist. On Nov. 30 Bray's ASO Titer count was 754(normal level is 160), when taken again on Dec. 28 they had dropped to 619 on their own. Right after this Bray was put on Augmentin for 10 days and now he's on a 1x a day prophylactic dose until March. We'll be seeing a neurologist in Feb. at Nemours. I've spoken with a leading PANDAS doctor from Chicago and he feels our best bet to beat the PANDAS would be IVIG treatment. Which is a blood treatment. We're basically finding that hardly any of this is covered by insurance and is going to be very expensive. Bray had a good couple of days this week, but only to have a down fall today. We're not really seeing any big difference since the antibiotic treatment started, but we're going to have to tweak doses to see what best suits him. Every case is different and not one set dose works for each kid. Currently I'm working with man who does bbq for fundraisers. Soon we'll have a bbq fundraiser for Bray to raise the money needed for a specialist and treatment.

Basketball season is going great. Bray absolutely loves it. He's really coming out of his shell and has scored points for his team. I'm very proud of him. He has his 2nd game tomorrow afternoon. I will post pics soon.

School has been a little rough. Bray has been pretty reserved and not really talked a lot here lately. His TOD, SLP, and special ed teacher are going to take a trip to the Clarke Oral school to see if the school can give them any tips on how to better work with him. Otherwise his school is going to be looking for an ASL interpreter for him. We've been having a horrible time with him taking off his ears and hiding them.

My hopes are that the further we get into treatment the better things will get and the more we can work with him. Since Nov. he's been wild and out of control....OCD, Tics, ADHD, ODD...it's been really hard to deal with.

Doctor in New Jersey(12-21-09)

2009-12-21T22:29:00.002-05:00

Two weeks later I finally got my call back from the office manager at Dr. Nicolaides. I got a lot of heartbreaking news. The phone consult that was going to be done to help us treat him, turned in to be a consult that would cost $95 and only tell us if it would best benefit us to travel to New Jersey to have an examination done on Bray. Then to find out she doesn't accept any insurance and we'll have to pay $1200 for the visit out of pocket. That doesn't even include air fair, rental car, hotel, food, and ect. It would take us 13 hours to drive there if we don't fly. She wants us to stay for 2 days so she can evaluate him really good since we live so far away. It's a lot of money that we just don't have. We're currently trying to find ways to make some cut backs in our finances to save the money to take Bray. One way or another we will get him there. I know in my heart she's the right doctor for him.

Bray continues to show more and more old behaviors that we thought were long gone. He's waking at all times in the night. Eating in the middle of the night. Waking up and staying up at 5 am. Refuses to wear a jacket as cold as it's been here. Screaming at everyone anytime you speak to him. Being very aggressive. He's been running around the house like his tail is on fire. No form of punishment has helped. At least I've been able to get a break from it all every now and then. I'll be glad when Timmy gets back on day shift!

I did decide to brave the trip to see my family in Douglas for Christmas. The trip over was unbearable. Once we got there he got ok. I just knew he would start his crazy actions and freak out the family. I'm proud to say that he reacted with the kids in a normal manner compaired to what we've been seeing between him and Kenzee here at home. It was nice to see family and enjoy Christmas with them. On the way home the kids fell asleep and I got a peaceful ride back.

Keep our family in your prayers! Thanks!

Atlanta Speech School

2009-12-15T08:04:00.003-05:00

Our meeting on Friday went great. The school is nestled in a hill and a pretty good size. Hallways divide the centers. Bray was his usual shy self at first meeting. The director was very nice. She gave us a tour of the school. We got to meet several teachers and see their classroom setups. The kids were working on their Christmas musical, so we were able to stand in there and watch for a bit. I couldn't help but to tear up as I stood there listening to the kids sing. Most were off pitch and lagging behind a little bit, but it didn't matter. They had so much spunk and confidence as they belted out the tunes, it was awesome! Prior to our meeting the director gave me a list of things to bring, IEP, audiograms, school test results, and anything else that I thought was important. I had all his teachers/therapist write a letter to the school to explain to them Bray's day to day struggles. I had a whole file folder full of info. I think she was surprised by all the info that came along with us, but I wanted her to get the whole picture of our situation. After reviewing all the info and talking with us and Bray. Yes, he actually talked! I was very shocked b/c she was someone new. She told us she could see Bray was a very bright boy. She feels that when we start AVT at Nemours that he will quickly catch up. Sign up for summer camp starts in March. She said to keep her updated and let her know how AVT is going. Once March comes if we felt he still needed the camp then she would sign him up. So we will see how he does in AVT at Nemours and go from there. We talked about the possibility of him going to school there for a year or so. She felt that the school could help Bray catch up in his speech, but was concerned that he may get bored academically. For now I've got clearer information. It's a great school. Come Jan. we will start AVT and hopefully treatment for the PANDAS. Maybe he will start progressing quickly. The director was very confident that once we started AVT that we wouldn't need to come to the summer program or during school year. We will see. :)

Prayers answered!

2009-12-09T10:13:00.003-05:00

Not too long after I made the last post I prayed and God put it on my heart to call Dr. Nicolaides in New Jersey again. The receptionist answered the phone and I began to tell her what I was calling for and our story. She took down all of our information and told me she would have the office manager to call me as soon as possible. She wanted to know how I'd heard about Dr. Nicolaides, I told her my Aunt saw Sammy's story on the Today show a year ago. She told me that Bray was just like him and that he was treated with antibiotics. I didn't think Bray had what Sammy did at that time b/c I didn't understand it and Bray had been on antibiotics so many times that if that's what he had it would be gone. She asked if Bray had a recent infection and how long he's been having this episode. I told her for a month he's been having the episode and he recently had an infection in his CI. She told me to be prepared to answer a ton of questions. After the office manager gets all of our information that we will get a conference call with Dr. Nicolaides to help with treatment! I thanked her over and over again. As I hung up the phone I my eye filled with tears and I dialed my Aunt who had first told me she believed Bray has PANDAS. When she picked up the phone I was crying tears of joy and told her the doctor that helped Sammy was going to help us. We cried and thanked God for our prayers being answered. For the first time I ever I believe my son is going to get better. That I'm going to get my son back! Our God is an AWESOME God!

I will walk by faith, even when I cannot see.
Because this broken road prepares Your will for me.

2009-12-09T08:53:00.002-05:00

Since my last post I've been searching the internet night and day about PANDAS. I finally did find a doctor to help us at Nemours. We can't get in until Feb. 22nd. I've been calling everyday to see if anyone has canceled an appt. I'm trying to get our pediatrician to call and get us in sooner. Monday was a good day for Bray. He did everything on his own without having to be told over and over or me having to do it for him. Then came yesterday. He woke up in his usual mood and I couldn't do anything with him. The tics and OCD has been really bad this past month. I thought we was past all this. All I can figure out is that the year we had Bray on the diet, he was healthier and didn't get sick. So I'm guessing it didn't trigger the PANDAS and the behaviors stopped. Since the whole infection with his CI he's been worse than ever. The doctor at Nemours needs to see him now while he's doing all these behaviors. If they wait til Feb to see him they are liable to be gone by then and we'll be back where we started. It's been frustrating to say the least. Bray couldn't work at speech yesterday b/c of the compulsions, inability to sit still, and the "hooting" and clearing his throat tic. I couldn't control him, couldn't get him to calm down. I don't know what to do. I'll continue calling doctors and trying to get him in as soon as possible. Please keep my family in your prayers. I'll post as positive things happen. No sense to post on all the negative. :(

We have an appt. with the Atlanta Speech School this Friday. We'll be leaving on Thursday. I'll post on that trip when we get back.

The results are in!

2009-12-04T23:10:00.004-05:00

I haven't heard anything from the doctors office all week, so I called this morning to check on Bray's blood work. Doctor hadn't looked over the results yet, she would call me back later. About 10 minutes later the nurse I spoke with called back. She told me that all Bray's test came back fine, except 2, and they were waiting on 1 to return. I asked what came back abnormal? She said his ASO titter came back really high, it was 753. I asked what is it suppose to be normally? She said 160 or below. OH MY GOSH! Then she told me his zinc was low. It was 5 hundred something and was suppose to be 600-1300. She then told me he was positive for PANDAS, but they don't know enough about it to treat it. So I got right on the internet trying to find doctors around us to treat this. I even called the doctor off the Today show that treated the little boy who had PANDAS. I left a message and hope to get a call back Monday. Right after that the insurance lady I've been fighting with about going to the Marcus Center called. I told her I didn't have time to argue with her today and the Marcus Center really didn't matter anymore. Shocked the lady asked what was going on. I told her Bray has been diagnosed with PANDAS. She shocked me by knowing what it was and told me we needed to find help immediately b/c he needed treatment and his blood needed to be cleanse. I told her I was searching high and low for doctors, I called all the hospitals in Atlanta, I wasn't getting anywhere. I was late to leave for Bray's appt. in Jacksonville. She told me to call our insurance and who to talk to to request a doctor that deals with PANDAS. Amazing how the woman I spent the last 6 + months fighting with gave me information and even knew about this PANDAS. I couldn't call the insurance on the way to Jacksonville, not with those two screaming kids in the car. I will call tomorrow and Monday.

Bray's appt. with his audiologist went great. She decided not to map him, but to do speech evals on him. He's hearing at 10-15 dbls. in both ears consistently. She performed 3 different test at different levels. With both ears on, only left, and then only right. He scored the best with both on. 2nd highest in the left(older ear), and worst in the right(newest ear). She was very pleased with his right ear though, next week his right ear will be a year old! Already! She said he's made very quick progress catching that ear up to the left. She said he was making appropriate speech substitutes for his age, so she wasn't very concerned with that. Told us he had a great vocab. She told us he was good to go, we just had to get it out of him. Which is still what baffles us. I'm glad to know that he's hearing great and understanding. If we can just get the equal amount of output! That would be awesome!

We took the kids to the St. Johns Town Center to see Santa. I just knew Bray would love it, b/c he's really been into Santa this year. NO! WRONG! He wouldn't sit in his lap, he would tell him what he wanted for Christmas. He just stood as far away as he could and screamed NO! Kenzee had no prob tell him what she wanted and taking a pic. So this year I've just got a pic of Kenzee and Santa. :) Santa did give him a coloring book and Bray told him thank you and gave him a high-five. Maybe next year Santa.

Blood work

2009-12-01T21:02:00.005-05:00

Yesterday morning I called Dr. H(surgeon) at Nemours to let him know what happened over the holiday. Before he scheduled an appt. he wanted Bray's pediatrician to check him out. So I made an appt. with her at 2 pm. She said she didn't think the lymph nodes in Bray's neck were caused from infection in his CI, even though Dr. H did think so. Told me to keep an eye on them and if they started getting larger to get him right in. It's going to take weeks for them to go down. While in there she seen where we'd seen Dr. M for Concerta. Wanted know how that was going. Told her how he reacted. She was concerned b/c while in there Bray started doing the vocal tics he used to do. Told her he's been doing it for about a month and a half. They seem to come and go....his whole behavior issues come and go. Told her about something called PANDAS caused by strep that my Aunt told me about a few days ago. Bray has 5 of the 7 symptoms and 3 of the major diagnostic criteria. If you want to know more about it google or yahoo search PANDAS. We then got to talking about how he gets sick very often. She decided to run blood test and a throat culture. She talked about sending us to an autoimmune disease doctor, but wants to get blood work back first. So we were sent to the hospital to the lab to get all these test done. They drew 6 viles of blood from him to test for calcium, magnesium, iron, ferritin, gluten sensitivity, zinc, ASO titters, and some sort of immunity test IgG, IgM, IgA, and IgE, along with a throat culture. The lady at the hospital said some of the test would be back today and others would take a few days. The doc more than likely won't call me until all the stuff comes in. We have an appt. for evaluations with his CI audiologist this Friday and will prob. be seeing Dr. H.

What's going on?

2009-11-29T23:28:00.003-05:00

Tuesday night the kids spent the night with Timmy's family for their Thanksgiving. I was looking forward to my break. I slept in late. I was eating lunch around 1:30 pm Wednesday when I get a call from Timmy's Aunt saying Bray was throwing up and running a fever. Knowing that Bray had the infection in his CI they were scared. I grabbed some supplies to protect my car on the way home his aunt's. I get there and they were taking his temp. 100.2. Not too bad. I decide to take him home.....or I thought I would. We got in the car and thankfully I packed supplies....it wasn't pretty. He was too weak and I got scared. I tried to get a hold of the CI surgeon, but couldn't b/c they had already left for the holiday. So I took him on to the hospital. It didn't take me 10 mins. to get to the hospital. They took him right on back and started their papers, weighing, temp check...all that good stuff. Weird thing is....the fever was gone, just as fast as it had shown up. I hadn't given him Tylenol or Motrin and nor had his Aunt. I told the ER doc what had been going on with the CI infection and what happened 30 mins. earlier. She ordered a head CT, chest xray, blood work, flu test, strep test, and urine culture. CT came back showing no CI infection....blood work came back showing high white blood count(infection), flu neg., strep neg., urine neg., and chest xray came back a little cloudy......maybe bronchitis, but he could have moved the tiniest bit and made that happen. So I get no answer to what was making him sick. It seems like everytime we go to the doc or hospital and he gets blood work done his white blood count is up which indicates infection, yet they NEVER can find where it is or what kind. The ER doc went on and gave Bray a rocefin shot in the leg to boost the antibiotics he was already on for the CI infection. I will call the surgeon in the morning and let him know what happened. We have an appt. for mappings Friday, so he may just wait to see us then. I'm also going to call his pediatrician and get them to get the results and look them over. Bray has been fine since then. He's been eating like a horse. I don't know what to think about all that is going on. I feel like something is going on, but no one can figure it out.

Not what I expected......

2009-11-23T11:19:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I gave Bray his first concerta. Wow....within about an hour he was so quiet. He didn't talk...he just sat there. Timmy and Bray went to town to pick up a bed for my Nana in the truck. Nana said when she tickled him he smiled, but went back to his zombieish state. The boys come home and Bray wanted to finish cutting down the tree we were working on the day before. Problem, it was raining! He was bound and determined he was going to cut down that tree. We tried to make him come inside and he just sat at the doorway of the garage looking at the tree. Strange, Bray doesn't like rain. Even stranger that 5 mins. later I look out the door and he's standing in the rain with a hooded jacket on moving tree branches. Very not like Bray. He was like in super focus on that tree. He sat outside for nearly 6 hours in the garage just looking at that tree or sneaking out to try to pile it up. Timmy went out and made him come inside....he wasn't happy. We got a flash back of about 2 yrs. ago. He found a stick and beat the freezer, the table, and the ground with it. Screaming at the top of his lungs in a scream I've never heard before. We couldn't calm him down. I let Timmy handle it, I didn't want to get caught up in all that again. 2 yrs. earlier he was on Riperdal and Methylin and freaked out after 6 months on the meds. He got so angry one day he got a baseball bat and hit me with it a few times. Timmy finally got him to come in and sit down. The littlest thing would set him off though. He would go back to that weird screaming and get so mad he would clinch his fist and shake. This is all what I was afraid of. I gave him the med at 9am and by 5pm it had started wearing off. It's suppose to be a 12 hours release. Once the med. wore off Bray returned to his usual playful self. I asked him what was wrong earlier and all he would say is he was mad. I got that one loud and clear son! I've decided that I'm not going to give him anymore through the holiday break. I'd rather have a happy and easy going break then one dealing with Bray freaking out due to a medication. I'd much rather deal with him having a bit of an attention issue than him turning into the hulk. I'm freaked out by the results of just the first day. After break and a call to the doc we'll see if we try the med. again. I don't like that side of Bray and it's nearly impossible to deal with him in that state.

Today he is fine. He is playing and happy. Bray and Mackenzee are getting along. He's been pretty calm.

Nemours Update

2009-11-22T10:13:00.002-05:00

Bray did/does have an infection in the internal CI of his right ear. Friday morning the swelling and redness was gone, but he had 4 glands in his neck that were swollen. Doc said this is a good indication the infection is moving out. He put Bray on amox. 3x a day for 7 days. Told us to keep an eye on it and if anything changes to call. He will call to check on us after Thanksgiving. Bray has been acting fine. He's been scratching at the site every now and then. We're just keeping a close eye on him.

AVT evaluation went good. As good as it could go with Bray's lack of attention. That was the first thing the therapist noticed. We've agreed on Bray getting AVT 1x a week. We've got to go through insurance approval first. It may be Jan. before they can get us in b/c of insurance. They will try to see us at least 2 times before then, hopefully. If our schedules can work out he will be seeing Stephanie. She used to work at the Clarke Oral school and is their strongest AVT.

Let's try one more time.

2009-11-19T22:48:00.005-05:00

When I get something in my mind, I'm going to do it or die trying. I'm very determined. Brayden gets this very honest from me. I called Nemours back this afternoon and talked with the same lady I talked with yesterday about AVT. During our conversation about waiting list and other places that may be able to take him in.....she stops and says, "What is he needing AVT/speech therapy for?" I said "He has cochlear implants and is delayed in his speech." She then says, "OOOOHHHH....that's a whole other ball game." "Within the month you WILL have an appt." "Hold on, let me talk with the director." I jumped off the couch I was so excited. After being told yesterday that speech therapy was booked up until March. The director was busy, so I left my phone number so she could call me back with an appt. I couldn't stop smiling and I was soooooo happy! About an hour later I got a call back from the director herself. She said, "I noticed in the system you have an appt. with the doc tomorrow afternoon." "I also noticed that you live out of state, I thought it would be easiest and save you time if I made his appt. tomorrow before his appt. with the surgeon." :o) That sounds great to me! Thank you so much! Moral of the story....tell the receptionist your son has COCHLEAR IMPLANTS! Duuuuuuhhhhhhh Mom!

We'll be meeting with the AV therapist at 2 pm for evaluations and then at 3pm with the surgeon to check his head. God is great! Thank you Lord!

Oral Schools

2009-11-18T18:22:00.004-05:00

I decided a week or so ago to start looking into some summer programs for Brayden to go to this summer. This snowballed into seeing if he was able to get into an oral deaf school. All this is to catch Brayden's speech up. This past Monday we took a tour of the Clarke school in Jacksonville, Fl. The program was great. The director I'm not so sure about. Things were said and then she contradicted herself. Never the less, the kids had great speech. The one fall back was curriculum wasn't top priority. After the tour we talked about tuition and scholarships. Since we live in a different state we're unable to get one. There were a lot of things that should have been made completely clear over the phone before we ever showed up on the Friday before. Either way Bray loved the school and didn't want to leave. We got to really see the difference in his speech and the Clarke kids. Timmy took it the hardest. So now we're onto our next option the Atlanta Speech School. I called and talked to the director over the Hamm Center(oral class for Bray's age group). We set up an appt. for Dec. 11th. Right now the school is full, but Bray needs to start the application process now in order to attend the summer program. It's 6 weeks long. My Aunt lives about 20 mins. away from the school, so we'll be staying with her. In our conversation I was asking about the curriculum that was taught along with the AVT classroom setting. The woman asked me several questions about Bray. Gave me a long list of reports to bring and so forth to the appt. She asked about how he was doing in school and I told her he's doing great except when it comes to language arts assessments b/c of his speech delay. The school has made accommodations with picture cards and allowing him to sign to show he does know what's going on, but as a parent of a child with a CI I want him to talk. To catch up his speech. She then shocks me by saying well he may be too advanced in curriculum to come to our school. I said even with the speech delay? Maybe she said. During our meeting Dec. 11th they will check him over and do some evaluations to make a determination. I asked what should we do if he can't get in b/c of beign on target with curriculum? She suggest AVT. So I called Nemours and tried to schedule an appt. with the AV therapist, but hit a road block. She's booked up until March. It's the only place around here that offers AVT. So I'm just going to pray hard, wait for our appt. in Atl. and see how things go.

Bray had an appt. with his pediatrician today to see about ADHD meds. The diet is working good on keeping him from getting hyper and has helped with his attention, but he needs a little extra push. His TOD and both SLP's have told me he can't focus and his attention span is short. So the doc put him on concerta 18 mg. I'm scared to start the meds. But hopefully this will help him focus and be able to concentrate on speech and not shut us out. We'll see.

On another note, Bray told me his head hurt yesterday. On his right side(newly implanted side) where the magnet connects to his head. I checked it yesterday and it wasn't red or anything, just was a little sore to him. I figured he must have bumped his head on something in that spot. This morning when I walked him into the classroom he was rubbing that spot again. I took his coil off to look at it and it was red and had a raised spot. So I twisted his magnet to where it was about to fall out. I barely rubbed his head in that spot and he told me it hurt. When he got home from school today that was the first thing he told me, was that his head hurt and he wanted to take his CI off. I tried to contact our surgeon in Savannah, but couldn't and couldn't leave a message for some odd reason. So I called the surgeon at Nemours that we've seen once before and he wants Bray to come in this Friday to check it out. I hope and pray that it's nothing. That he's just bumped his head and none of us knew about it. The teachers said they didn't see him get hit at PE or recess in that side or in the head at all. We've been getting a H3 code on that ear for a month with it on his head. I've had 3 coils replaced and it still hasn't fixed the problem. I'm just trying to stay positive and wait for our appt.

Basketball 2009

2009-11-15T23:55:00.005-05:00

Brayden loves all sports. He's recently really taken to basketball. So when the school sent home a sign up form for Upward basketball I jumped at the chance. Saturday morning at 8am he had tryouts. I was very skeptical about how Bray would react to this new experience. He gets very quiet and reserved in new experiences, until he figures things out. We were the first people there for the K league tryouts. Which I was hoping we wouldn't be so Bray could watch the drills that they would have the kids doing and know what to do. Kenzee sat in the bleachers while I went out on the court to explain to Bray what he needed to do. He did great shooting from the free throw line, over to the left, and then over to the right. Now when it came to doing the drills he wasn't sure and wasn't confident so he began to shut down. The coach was very understanding about Bray's CI's, speech, and understanding. Instead of doing the drill the way it was originally intended he made a game out of it in dribbling and shooting. Dribbling with the left hand 3 times then shoot, dribbling with the right then shoot, passing between hands and shoot, running up while dribbling and shoot. He did very good. I was very impressed. After that he got fitted for his uniform. I think he was very pleased with himself. When we got in the car he told me he wanted to play basketball at the church again. The coach will give us a call the first week of Dec. He'll let us know which team he's on and what days practices are and games. We're all looking forward to this basketball season.

County Fair

2009-11-15T23:03:00.009-05:00

The kids had a great time at the fair. It was very loud and Brayden didn't seem to mind. Which was very surprising to me, b/c he usually complains when things are loud. Brayden rode a helicopter ride, went through 2 fun houses, rode a pony, a race car ride, and jumped on a trampoline contraption that had him shooting up about 15 ft. in the air. Kenzee rode on a swing ride and went through a fun house. I think the swing ride went a little too high for her b/c she didn't care to ride anything else after that. I think Bray's favorite thing was that trampoline. It scared me to death, but he was a dare devil and jumped his heart out and really really really high! I didn't let him wear his "ears" for fear that they would fly off. I also didn't let him wear them in the fun house b/c of the noise level and if he lost them I would have never found them. We also got to watch a clown show. There was a petting zoo that had exotic animals. Of course there was all the pigs, hogs, cows, and goats. Bray loved every minute of it. He was smiling so hard that his dimples couldn't have gotten any deeper. There was a real helicopter there doing rides. Bray was having a cow about it and I told him he could ride with Daddy if he wanted. He didn't want to ride, just watch. Bray has been talking about the "bear" all weekend. Even though we've corrected him to say "fair" over and over. :) I'm glad they had a blast!

I spy

2009-11-13T08:15:00.004-05:00

Bray absolutely loves to play games. It's almost the only way I can get him to work on speech skills. This game gives your all the opportunities that you can imagine. Sometimes we play by the rules and other times we make up our own. Last night I we worked on describing, repeating, vocabulary, conversational skills, multi-step directions, and memorizing. He would say "I spy a fish." So I would ask him "What does it look like?" "How big is it?" "Does it have big fins or little ones?" We were working on describing and he had no idea. When it came to my turn I would give him 3 or 4 objects to remember and find on his card. He decided to play on 2 other cards as well b/c he wasn't finding all the objects on his card. Hehe. I told him not to cheat. He then began looking at the smaller cards to find the pics on the big cards to beat me. I told him, "That's cheating!" " You cheater!" Later on in the game when it was coming to the end I don't exactly remember what I did, but he didn't like it and shouted, "Mama, you cheater!" He's getting really good at picking up little phrases that people say. It really floored me that he remembered that I called him a cheater b/c I only said it once. :)

Last night we also worked on his sight words. With the right ear on only(newly implanted) to build it up more. I filled an old clean sock with rice and tied it up to turn it into a ball. We placed our sight word index cards on the floor. The rule to the game was when I called out a word he would throw the "ball" and make it land on top of the correct sight word. He missed a few that sounded very similar with his right ear. He did great with his left ear, knowing all the words.

We worked on grouping letters, words, and sentences. I made 3 groups on the poster board. Then we take post it notes with letters, words, and sentences and stick them in their proper groups on the board. This is to make him aware that when letters are grouped together they make words and when words are grouped together that they make sentences. It's all apart of test that they doing at school. But it also helps him to understand that it's import for him to use all his words to make a sentence. Something he still has trouble with talking.

Bray and I had a funny conversation on the way to school this morning.

Me- "Do you want to go to the fair tonight?"
"They have rides, cotton candy, and games."
"It'll be really fun!"

Bray- "Yes!" "ummmm....NO! The beach!"

Me-" The beach?!?!"

Bray- "Yeah! I go run and play the beach."

Me- "Son, it's too cold to go to the beach now."
"It's fall...the beach is cold in the fall."
"We'll have to wait until it's warm again, in the summer."

Bray- "No, sun sky outside."

Me- "Yes, the sun is out, but that doesn't mean it's going to be warm enough to go to the beach."

Bray- "Ahhhhhh man!"

Me- "Have a good day at school!"
"I love you, be good!"

Bray-"Love you Mama, BYE!"

Assessments

2009-11-12T08:34:00.005-05:00

So I've been a bit frustrated with Brayden's speech here lately. Especially since they changed some the the GKIDS testing to incorporate recalling and answering questions about stories, holidays, and events. GKIDS is a GA standards test that all Kindergartners have to take. Problem is my little kindergarten student doesn't have the language skills to tell them his answers in detail and therefore couldn't be passed off for that assessment. This is when I get upset that he's not signing anymore. UGH! I was up a 2 nights ago until 4 am looking up what actions I could take so that Bray could be tested fairly and accurately according to his hearing impairment/speech delay. After searching for hours for info on IEP websites and GA standards testing site I finally went to bed, upset that I wasn't completely getting an answer. Bray has awesome teachers! They work with him one on one when he needs it, always let me know what's going on in the classroom, and they always give me more than enough info for me to help him meet and exceed assessments. I was just about to call an IEP meeting to request modifications to all area of testing so that he may be tested fairly and accurately according to his hearing impairment/speech delay. Being the great teachers they are, they called the school board and explained the situation about this certain assessment. They understood the issue at hand and the teachers were given permission to use during testing whatever they used in the class to teach the students. In this case it means single picture cards and story boards. I felt a huge sense of relief that he wasn't going to be failed just b/c he couldn't verbally explain what's going on in the story to the extent that was needed. One day this will all be a distant memory of how he is delayed in his speech. He's continuing to make progress and at times I don't see the progress happening fast enough so I get upset. His teacher assured me that Bray is doing great. He's on target with his peers in all subjects, of course minus the speech delay. I guess I need to stop focusing so hard on the one downfall and celebrate that he's doing great in the mainstream setting.

Recent activities

2009-11-11T12:34:00.011-05:00

Bray dressed up as Daddy for career day.

Fall Festival and Halloween

Firemen letting the boys spray the fire hydrants after they were tested.

Trying on the N5. He wants all black with the green camo cover. :)

M.O.S.H Museum

Be right back

2009-10-24T12:51:00.004-04:00

My computer has been down for a week or more as well as my cell phone. Timmy had to wipe out our computer and load everything back in and install 2 years worth of updates. As soon as I get all my (millions 0f) pictures back on I'll update on our trip to the M.O.S.H museum, halloween projects, school, and more. Don't you just love computers?

First fish

2009-10-12T21:37:00.005-04:00

With the help of his Daddy, Brayden caught his first fish. It was a small bass. We've been fishing the same pond for about a year now without the first nibble. Brayden has finally learned how to cast his line. After a few times he was able to get the line way out in the pond. He even hooked his own cricket. All in all the boys caught 3 fish. Brayden was so excited! There was a big bass in the pond that kept jumping up and splashing. Brayden kept casting his line out to where he was splashing and told me, my big fish...wow! Maybe one day he will catch that big one! He's already telling tall fish tales. HAHA! He told his Aunt Phyl that he caught 4 big fish. :) He's looking forward to going back to the pond with his Daddy this weekend. Did I mention it was 93 degrees outside today? Where is fall?

We've been working on the seasons and months over the break and he's done a great job. We were watching the weather channel today and they were showing the mountains and trees and said "Look mama, fall". Then they showed a pic of the sun shinning and a green tree and he told me summer. We're still working on the order of the months. He's finally understanding the 6 sight words that he missed. He goes back to school Wednesday and I think his teachers will be proud of the progress he made over the break.

Report card/ Halloween

2009-10-09T22:25:00.005-04:00

Brayden's vocabulary has been expanding by the minute. Halloween decorations have taken over our house (inside and out) and some neighbors who have taken our lead and decorated. We've made all sorts of cool crafts since the start of October. We've made pumpkins, candy corn characters, and spiders. Brayden and Kenzee have made me up a list of a lot more crafts they want to do. I ordered Brayden some halloween books and sight word books from scholastics, so he's been busy reading them to his Daddy. He's doing a great job at trying to sound words out. Brayden made me very proud when he brought his report card home Wednesday. He had all S's except for a few N's and U's. N's and U's were mostly to do with language(duh he still isn't talking up to par). We have 6 sight words(he, she, can, this, at, and) to work on that he didn't pass off. All words that he doesn't use and had trouble understanding. He only missed 6 out of 30, he did great! He almost passed off his days of the week, but kept skipping Monday. Mrs. Johnson said he did them correct the day before the test. Months and seasons we're still working on as well. He's off of school for fall break until next Wednesday, so we are working really hard on those sight words, days of week, months, and seasons so hopefully when he goes back next week he can be passed off. On a good note, Brayden's SLP at school Mrs. Harris said that Brayden has a good vocab base, but his articulation hinders him greatly from being understood. For the fact that a lot of his words sound the same. So she's working on articulation and nonsense words to strengthen his sounds. We're still not able to get back with his private SLP for insurance reasons. Hopefully soon we will be able to start back sessions! I also had a wonderful surprise when I opened his report card of a list of passed off IEP goals in the 1st 9 weeks! So to celebrate all the good he was able to pick out a big toy. He picked out a huge air craft carrier with 3 planes and a crew of airmen. I'm extremely pleased with the results of his and our hard work in the 1st 9 weeks. Way to go Brayden!

Brayden wasn't feeling too good on his tummy earlier and began throwing up. I gave him some phenergan and he's been fine since about 5 pm today. So hopefully it will pass on and we'll continue to have a good fall break. I just hope it doesn't pass on to the rest of us.

Busy week

2009-09-24T21:59:00.002-04:00

It seems like we've been going, going, and going this week. Timmy had 4 days off and he goes back to work tomorrow. We didn't get anything accomplished with the house. We were planning on working on the kids bathroom, but wound up in town everyday. I can't complain too much though b/c we had a really good time this week. The kids and I have been decorating the house for fall/halloween. We've got everyone's costume bought except for mine. Bray has really been a character the past few days. He's kept me laughing and I really needed it. First it started with Bo Jangles(5 ft skeleton). Watching him put it together was hilarious! He's played with that skeleton for 2 days now. We've been using it to work on body parts. Today he put on his bumble bee costume(transformers) and took a running slide on his stomach, jumped up and made the clanging sound and motions of changing from a car to a robot. OMG, I thought I was going to die. I laughed so hard. Brayden has been exposed to so much new vocabulary buying for fall/halloween stuff. I bought halloween scrapbook paper to make him a halloween experience book. I really need to update his experience books and create new ones.

Today his replacement processors came in. In a temper tantrum a week ago he snatched both of his ears off and threw them across the room. Well right where the processor connects to the controller snapped. I had them tapped together until the new ones came in. Well while changing them out today I found that his right coil is also broken. So I called Hear Always and he'll have a new one sent in on Monday.

I had a check up with the doctor today. I feel 100%, but the doc still wants me to take it easy. What's taking it easy? It's been 2 weeks. That's enough down town. I don't like having to depend on other people.

We use a program called Boardmaker(picture communication system) to help Brayden retain information and understand. This works great for us since he's so visual. Right now the company is offering a 30 trial of the software for free. For any of you that have visual learners this is a great program to try. Go to http://www.mayer-johnson.com/ scroll down to download free trial, make an account and you're on your way. We use this for First then boards, schedules, pics to add to his calendar, we just made a portable menu to take to restaurants. It takes the frustration out of trying to guess what he wants or how his day is going to go.

During our trips to town I've met a few new people with hearing loss and was able to talk with them about hearing aids and CI's. A very sweet lady approached us and I quickly realized she had hearing aids. She asked to talk to Brayden about his CI's. She asked him if he liked hearing and he said yes. She asked if he liked his CI's and he said yes. Eventually he went on to ask if he could have cookies, cereal, and a lot of other junk food. She was very impressed with his speech and how well he could hear and understand us. She told me she had been thinking of getting a CI and wanted to meet someone with one to make up her mind. I walked out to my car to get her a Cochlear brochure and as I handed it to her she told me that Brayden had changed her mind about the CI and that she would soon be contacting Ga Ear Institute about getting a CI. :-D Nothing makes me happier than educating people on hearing loss and cochlear implants.

We won!

2009-09-22T23:21:00.003-04:00

Brayden's TOD had a meeting with the Special Ed. Director about the battery situation. After I sent Brayden to school Monday with his rechargeable batteries and called the Special Ed. Director myself, the the director decided to call a meeting with his TOD. That meeting took place today. I was told I wouldn't hear what they decided on until Wednesday. I got a great surprise though. Brayden's TOD called me this afternoon and told me that the school WILL be paying for his batteries. :)

Drummer boy

2009-09-21T20:34:00.006-04:00

So I finally gave in. Brayden has been asking me to put my drum set in his room for weeks now. After the football game we went to last Friday night he's only gotten worse. Seeing those drummers got him excited and he's walked around the house the past couple of days pretending to march and drum. Everytime I turn the tv on a music channel he air drums. So tonight I made a bargain. He didn't want to do his reading homework. He hasn't wanted to for the past 2 weeks. So I told him that if he was a good boy and did his homework I would let him put the drum set in his bedroom. Of course after that he did his reading homework and sight words without playing like he didn't know his words or how to read.

Our family revolves around music. Music is constantly playing at our house and in the car. Timmy and I both play several instruments. Timmy plays saxophone and tuba. I play guitar, bass, drums, and trombone. I taught myself how to play all of them except for the trombone. Timmy and I were both in band throughout school.

I'm hoping that putting the drums in Brayden's room will work to my favor. That it will give him a release of all the frustrations and joy. I myself had ADHD as a child. Sometimes I think I still suffer from it when trying to gather my thoughts and focus. But I've learned ways around it. I remember when I was a kid there was nothing I wanted more than to come home from school and play my drums. Brayden is a lot like me. I just need to get back in touch with the way I felt back when I was a kid. That way I can help my son get through his ADHD.

He had a blast playing those drums tonight. He smiled with every bang. You could just see he was loving every minute of it. I've let him play them before, but I was trying to teach him. I think Brayden has enough teaching going on. Drums are going to be for fun, to explore and be free. So here's to the start of his musical adventure!

Sorry about the quality of the video and it being sideways. It was taken with my digital camera.

Batteries and IEP

2009-09-20T22:07:00.003-04:00

We are still fighting the battle with Brayden's school. I'm now being told b/c his CI uses the same batteries to run his FM that we are responsible to provide them batteries. I've argued over and over that the FM system is theirs and is their responsibility to provide the batteries to work the FM. Also that if they don't provide batteries it won't work and that they're not implementing his IEP properly b/c it states that he is to use an FM in classroom. I'm still not able to get anywhere. So in the morning I will be sending him in his rechargeable batteries. They stated I would have to provide batteries anyways to work his CI, so I will be. In the form that can't work his FM system to prove my point. Hopefully they will get the point and buy the batteries. I haven't had any IEP troubles until now. I feel for those of you who have to fight tooth and nail against the school system every step of the way!

Go Gators!

2009-09-19T21:58:00.004-04:00

Friday night Timmy, the kids, my nana, and I went to Uncle Dewey's(my brother's) football game. I was nervous to go. It was my first outing since having surgery. The kids had a great time. We sat where they could get up and play around a bit. Brayden spotted the drummers in the band right off. He loved the bass drum. Funny enough I marched the bass drum my freshman year. Maybe he'll march it too. Kenzee spotted the cheerleaders and dancers of the band. I knew she would, she's so not like her mama and is a girly girl. The Gators(Ware Co.) lost. :( We didn't stay the whole game. I got to hurting and Brayden was cranky. He can't sit still for anything(ADHD). So we left at the top of the 4th quarter. I snapped some pics of the kids at the game. Bray is marching a bass drum and Kenzee dancing like the dancers. Enjoy!

Surgery update

2009-09-11T21:46:00.003-04:00

I'm doing pretty good. The past couple of days have been a blur. I was allowed to come home yesterday and I jumped to it. I didn't get to sleep at the hospital b/c of my blood pressure staying so low. They woke me up just about every 30 mins. Every night I've run a low grade temp that goes away after a few hours. Most of the gas they used to blow me up is gone now. That was the most painful part of the surgery. I have 3 small incisions. One in my belly button and two on either side near my ovaries. They took our my uterus, cervix, and fallopian tubes. All I'm left with is my ovaries. I have some scar tissue on the left one and little red spot on the right ovary. Timmy said when he picked Bray up from school and brought him up to the hospital to see me he got excited when they got on the baby floor. He went over to the big window where you can see the babies and asked him where's my baby? Timmy tried to explain to him the best he could that mommy didn't have a baby, but had surgery. He wanted to see my tummy. Then he asked me about a baby. Bless his heart, it broke my heart. The hysterectomy was bitter sweet for me. Timmy and I are blessed to have Brayden and Mackenzee. We both were told we couldn't have kids. We have two beautiful kids! After we had Brayden and his hearing was genetic and he had severe food allergies, then we had Kenzee and her hearing was fine, but had severe food allergies. We decided that we didn't want anymore(I think I was just scared). I've always had a lot of problems in the female area, cyst always on my ovaries and endometriosis. So I had an essure tuba ligation. Then we found out I had adenomyosis last year. To try to keep from doing a hysterectomy I had an ablation done on my uterus. I still had a lot of pain this past year and bleeding. So the only way to correct the problems and get me back to normal was to do a hysterectomy. I will always want more kids, even though I have my hands full. I'm blessed and greatful for the two I have. Doing the surgery was hard for me. I guess it was the mental aspect of those parts will be gone and I'll never be able to have kids again. Even though I couldn't have them with the other surgeries I had. Now I'm looking forward to having my life back. Without the pain when I go outside and play with my kids. I look forward to being "normal" again. So yes, it's bitter sweet. I'm excited about being able to live life pain free!

Brayden was throwing up again today. He told Timmy this morning he was sick and didn't want to go to school. We thought it was b/c he wanted to stay home with me. Around 2pm his teacher called and said he was throwing up. I called his doc and of course she wasn't on call. So the doc on call called me back. I explained he was in the hospital last week with a stomach virus and that I just had a hysterectomy and we really needed him to write a script for phenergan suppositories so Bray didn't wind up at the hospital again. Thank goodness he did and Timmy picked them up. Bray has thrown up one more time. Since then he's ate some Popsicles and Gatorade. So far things are staying down. I pray it's going to pass quickly. Poor Timmy is worn out. He's been none stop since last week with Bray in the hospital and me going through surgery. He's a great husband and father.

Keep my family in your prayers!

Hysterectomy tomorrow.

2009-09-08T21:23:00.003-04:00

Keeps us in your prayers! I have to be at the hospital at 8:30 am. Talk to you all soon!

Home and back to normal.

2009-09-07T18:00:00.004-04:00

Brayden was able to come home yesterday afternoon from the hospital. He's doing just fine. Eating anything and everything he can get his hands on. After such an eventful weekend Timmy and I are going on a date night to celebrate 8 years together. Tomorrow I'll be getting all my pre-op stuff done for the surgery. Wednesday is the day. I'm starting to get nervous, but I know I'll feel so much better once everything is done and healed. This is kinda bitter sweet for me. But for tonight I'm going to enjoy my date night with the most handsome man ever.

Doing good

2009-09-06T00:50:00.002-04:00

Brayden called me around 7 pm to ask me to get him a cheese burger and french fries from burger king. So I headed to town to get him a happy meal and swap out with Timmy so he could come home and shower. Brayden ate the whole happy meal plus some cookies he had. The nurses came in and weighed him afterwards. I asked him if he wanted to take a bath and he told me yes. So I got all the stuff together that I needed. I put the little pink pan in the sink and filled it up with warm water. I called Brayden into the bathroom to get undressed. He looked over in the sink and gave me this look like are you kidding me? He looked over at me and said bath? Baby bath, too little. I started laughing and he wasn't too happy. So as I started to give him his bird bath he started crying. He cried until I finished up. Once I dried him off he was happy. He brushed his hair and brushed his teeth. I called the nurse in to undo his IV so I could change his gown. So then he layed down in his bed and asked me to turn the lights off. He then started asking me about school and I told him he didn't have to go back until Wednesday. Well he started crying again and beginning to go to school tomorrow. So I drew out a copy of our weekly wall calendar. Sat-Tues. I drew a house and a car. Wed-Thurs I drew a school. I explained that he was off until Wed. and he would go back to school then. Well he drew huge X's on the home days and even bigger check marks on the school days. He told me school now yes. By this time Daddy walked in and I layed down in the bed with him and tickled him to sleep. It was 10:30pm. I sat there and talked with Timmy until 11:30 pm and then headed home. Bray is getting another round of IV antibiotics. I think he will be able to go home tomorrow once the doc comes in and checks him out. He's doing really good!

One more night at the hospital.

2009-09-05T13:54:00.002-04:00

The doctor finally came in, she's going to keep him at the hospital one more night to make sure he's keeping his food down. She's dropping his IV intake to bring his appetite up. His white blood count is coming down. She thinks it's a stomach bug that's going around. She said it's affecting each kid differently.

Waiting on the doctor.

2009-09-05T13:00:00.002-04:00

Brayden did fine through the night. His temp has stayed down and he hasn't gotten sick on his tummy anymore. They took a CVC around 3am this morning, but we won't know the results to that until the doctor comes in. Timmy said Bray is back to his normal frisky self today. They still have him on the clear liquid diet, but he's been able to eat and keep down a few bites of real food here and there. Hopefully when the doctor comes in she will have good news and he will be sent home. Brayden gets very antsy at the hospital being confined in such a small room, it's hard to deal with him wanting to bounce around the room, being loud, and ready to get out. God is good!

Still no answers.....

2009-09-05T00:20:00.004-04:00

All of Brayden's test have come back negative. His white blood count is very high. I was told 11 is normal and his is 30.3. They're growing a blood culture for bacterial infection. We will find out how that turns out in a day or so. He's getting a strong antibiotic through his IV. I went to the hospital for about an hour so that Timmy could come home, shower, eat, and pack some clothes for the stay. While I was there Brayden ate some saltines and drank some Sprite. He played with his toy trucks and cars I took him, drew some pictures, and colored in his pirate coloring book. He was even a bit playful. He hasn't thrown up since 3pm today. His fever is staying down for the moment. The doctor will be in sometime tomorrow to check on him. When the fever hits he gets really sick, I mean really sick! When the fever breaks he starts getting back to his normal silly self , as you can see in the picture. It's driving me crazy not being at the hospital with him. Not knowing exactly what's going on. Timmy has made it clear that I'm to stay home to keep from getting any sicker myself or making Brayden any sicker. I'm very proud of how Timmy has handled everything today. He's never taken Brayden to the hospital alone to get an IV (Timmy has a huge fear of needles). He really stepped up today and handled it all on his own. He's an awesome father. Brayden is very happy that his best buddy in the whole wide world is spending the night with him in the hospital tonight.

Hospital time

2009-09-04T17:09:00.004-04:00

Around 2 pm Brayden's fever broke. He ate a few bites of toast. He sat up and watched some tv for a bit. He even got out some paper and crayons to draw. It didn't last long though. About 30 mins. later the fever spiked back up. He started throwing up again and couldn't even hold himself up. Next thing I know he's falling alseep. HOSPITAL TIME! Everytime Brayden gets sick and throwing up we wind up at the hospital getting fluids. He's just like his Daddy in that manor. Timmy rushed home from town and took him the hospital. They're already back in a room and about to start running test. They are going to check him for the flu, swine flu, and everything else. He's getting some IV fluids. I will update as I know more. Keep us in your prayers!

Stomach bug

2009-09-04T12:48:00.004-04:00

Poor Brayden has a stomach bug. This is the first day he's missed of school. Yesterday morning when I walked him into his class room a little boy was sick with the stomach bug and sent home. So I was kinda looking for Bray to get it, but praying that he wouldn't. He whined and whimpered in his sleep all night long holding his tummy. I was just waiting for it to happen. 3 am this morning it all broke loose. Bless his heart. He's been running a fever of 100.4. We haven't been able to break it so far. He hasn't been able to keep anything down. He's been asleep most of the day. I'm so thankful that Timmy is home today. He's been doing a great job at clean up. I'm trying to get over a cold at the moment. The doctor has me on a strong round of antibiotics. I'm trying not to catch this bug. I'm scheduled to have a hysterectomy this coming Wednesday. So Daddy is doing all he can to keep me from getting any sicker.

This morning I sat in on Cochlear Americas online event: Introduction to the new Nucleus 5 Cochlear Implant System. I'm excited about the new processor. It has a lot of features that would be beneficial to us. Like the batter door and processor/controller latches. This keeps kids from being able to separate them. Also the coil separates from the wire instead of the whole thing plugging into the processor. All these things are problems we've had with breaking. Bray is the world's worst about breaking the little plastic connector that attaches the processor and controller together. Also the little prong adapter that plugs the coil into the processor he's managed to pull the plastic casing off before. He's rough on his CI's. The N5 will include multi-colored indicator lights to help diagnose specific problems. It will use disposable batters at first b/c the rechargeables aren't FDA approved yet. It will use only 2 675 batteries and last up to 4 days. I think they said the controller(remote) will last up to 1 week with batteries. When the rechargeables become available they will be free of charge for the first set. It will have a new set it and go program that will adjust it's self to the surrounding environment. You will still be able to use the smart sound programs. It features an automatic telecoil that connects to FM systems and telephones on it's own. This option can be turned off and you manually turn on the telecoil if wanted. You can change the settings of the processor through the remote or on the processor itself. The remote and processor communicate on their own and will alert you of problems. This is just a little overview of the things I remembered the staff saying off the top of my head. After listening in this morning I'm all for the new N5. Before I wasn't too sure about having to carry around a remote all the time or some of the functions, but Cochlear has really listened to the things that were needing to be fixed with the Freedom and took it to another level.

Brayden's left processor is covered under a service contract agreement we buy and the right is still under manufactures warranty. So it will probably be a while before we upgrade. :(

Working on speech

2009-09-04T00:19:00.004-04:00

Brayden's /g/,/d/, and /t/ are all sounding the same. As well as /m/ and /n/. This is something we've been working on over the summer and are continuing to do so now. As visual prompts we're using a picture of a drum for the /d/ sound, a picture of a man drinking for the /g/ (gulp, gulp), and a picture of a clock for the /t/ (tick tock). As we go along and he learns the pictures for the sound we can tell him when he's producing the wrong sound to use our "drum sound" or our "drinking sound". Instruction given by his private SLP Shannon.

During mapping yesterday I asked could we tweak his maps to make him hear the sounds better? Well Stacy said first we need to make sure he's hearing the sound first. She suggested that we use 3 index cards and write on each one the letters g, d, and t. Then practice what sound each letter makes for a week or more. Once we feel he knows the sound we place the 3 cards in front of him and ask him to point to the /d/. If he consistently gets it correct then he is hearing the sound properly and it's an oral production problem that needs to be worked on more. If he continues to get them wrong then it's a hearing problem that they can then tweak his map.

We're also doing the same sort of thing for a few words we've notice he's saying the same thing for. Example. Clown= cloud and clown. Gun= gum and gun. We draw or print off pics of a cloud and a clown. Then we tell him what they are and ask him to point to which ever. If he points to the correct picture then he's hearing the word correctly and again it's a speech issue. If not then it's a mapping issue that will be tweaked. So we have until Oct. 26 to get this all figured out before we go back for another mapping.

We have a long list of IEP goals this year. The one we're working on right now is body parts. He's got down the basic ones, but they want him to go into detail of the smaller parts like, finger nail, ankle, shin....basically breaking it down and not just saying foot, or leg, or finger. I'll list his IEP goals soon.

Brayden was implanted early, but refused to listen or learn with his CI until this past year. Brayden absolutely hated his CI until he got his 2nd implant this past Dec. Since then he's made great strides. So we've got a lot of catching up to do!

Ohhhhhh mapping

2009-09-02T22:49:00.004-04:00

Today we were going to try to map both ears. Yeah right! I should have known that was wishful thinking. Bray walked in the room with the intention of getting out of there as fast as possible and showing his temper. He started out by refusing to sit in the chair to listen. When he was told that he couldn't sit in Daddy's lap while doing so he threw his right cochlear across the room. Oh boy.....there's nothing more that can make me very angry. Daddy got him to calm down and got his attention on the toys they were going to use for listening. We decided to map the left ear first since it had been broken since last Friday and it's the better older ear. We got that mapped and his levels dropped a little. She said I was right on the money that the program was too loud. When I asked what caused it to change she told me that growth spurts, hormone levels, and fluid levels in the ear causes hearing to change and new maps to be needed. I wasn't aware of all that. Kinda strange, but ok...I'll go with it. We got the left ear mapped and worked on seeing if he was hearing certain words correctly or if it's an oral production problem that needed to be addressed by his SLP(saying ball for bowl, clown for cloud). Well in that time is when ADHD, shut down Brayden came out. She swapped ears to program the right and he wouldn't even show any sign at all that he was hearing anything. UGGGHHHH!!!!! This kid! So she dropped the right ear levels down a hair and left the old programs in both ears along with adding the new one. Once we got out of the office he was fine as could be. Happy, running around..... We go back in Oct. to map the right ear properly and evaluate him in the sound booth. I hate that our appts are spaced so far apart and we have to wait so long to get in, but that's just an issue with going to a big clinic. I love this clinic though, so it's worth it. Sorry Stacy and Jessica! I wish we could have gotten both mapped today. We'll be seeing you in October!

We stopped in at Firehouse Subs to grab a bite to eat. Brayden asked to go to the bathroom, so his Daddy took him. Well he stopped at the bathroom door and was pointing to the sign. I didn't know what was going on, but I heard Timmy say good job! When they came back he asked did I hear Brayden? I said no, too far away. He said he sounded out the word fire. The sign said firemen(men's room). I'm very impressed! Way to go son! He's got awesome teachers!

Mapping appt. tomorrow

2009-09-01T21:20:00.002-04:00

I'm looking forward to his mapping appt. tomorrow. I will be checking him out of school early to make our way to Nemours a hour and a half away. He's been complaining that everything is too loud. I can't even listen to the radio in the car. He's been very loud himself. His talking is almost screaming. He's been using the same sound for /g/,/d/, and/t/. He's also been saying ball for both ball and bowl. Clown for both clown and cloud, gun for gun and gum. These are some things we're going to talk with his audiologist about tomorrow. His left ear has been broken since Thurs. Cochlear can't get it back to us in time for his mapping appt. so they're just going to send it to his audiologist directly. I hope it's there when we get there. Wish us luck!

Lost and found

2009-08-31T22:48:00.003-04:00

Brayden got his baseball signed by 4 players of the Jacksonville Suns team. He almost got the quarter back for the Jacksonville Jags autograph, but missed it. The boys all had a great time and wound up coming home early b/c Papa and Brayden got tired. Us girls had a blast in Brunswick, Ga. We went out to eat at Longhorn and then shopping. I found some cute church clothes at Ross. I love that place! Any who, we had a great weekend.

Two days ago I got up and the kids were in the living room looking frantically at the rocking chair. They beat me out of bed and were very quiet about it. So I knew something was up. Sure enough, Bray was playing with the little hermit crab and it got away from him in the rocking chair. I spent an hour looking for that thing. I finally told him don't worry about it it will turn up soon. He spent the rest of the day looking here and there for it. Yesterday passed and I just knew it had died or the dog ate it. Well I cleaned up the living room and cleaned out Bray's room today and no sign of the crab. Daddy found it tonight when he went to wash Brayden inside of a wet towel on the bathroom floor. Go figure. It was still alive! So I'm glad we found that little booger.

Brayden's new reading group starts this week. He will have direct instruction(DI) Mon-Thurs for 45 mins. His reading folder comes home every Mon. and Thurs. for us to go over. It contains different items from time to time, such as books, word lists, flash cards, game, ect. I'm a little nervous b/c his reading teacher isn't one of his homeroom teachers. I'm sure he will do great though.

This week his letter is T.
Show and tell is free day this week.
Words- the, end, and white.
Plus new words from reading group- little, purple, and like

We're doing a little behavior modification at the moment. His behavior has been really bad at home. So I hit him where it hurt the most. I took all his toys from him. Didn't hurt him as bad as I thought it would, but maybe after a week or so he will decide he wants to behave and get them back. We'll see how it goes. He told me I could give them to Parker. I guess in his mind he's thinking when he goes down to his house he can play with them. Who knows what goes on in that little mischievous mind of his.

Show and tell

2009-08-28T21:03:00.002-04:00

Friday is show and tell day. Brayden has spent this whole week asking could he take his crabs to school yet? Finally this morning he went right over to his calendar and signed Friday and crabs. He was sooooo excited that today was Friday and he was able to take his hermit crabs to school. They waited to Bray's show and tell until 1:45 pm so that Daddy and I could come help him talk about them. Brayden didn't do a whole lot of talking, it was more mumbling. The kids all loved the crabs. Daddy even did a little researching so he could give the class some good facts.

Bray had a little bit of a rough day today. He showed his aggravating side to some students and almost got his pin moved. Things were quickly resolved and I think he had to sit out for a few mins. When he got home today he was really bad. He showed out at Wal-Mart. He came home and destroyed his bedroom and the living room. He spent a good bit of time in time out. But his bad behavior earned him an early bedtime tonight. Some days I just don't know what to do with this kid.

He had his end of August Gkids testing today. He knew all of his sight words. He missed a few letter sounds and kept calling the lower case l an i. He almost passed his days of the week, but left out one day 3 times. So we'll continue to work on that. She said she will retest him on those at the end of next week and hopefully he will have them down. We're still working on the months and seasons. He knows his address. He knows all of his positional words except for below. We're working hard! Thanks to all of his teachers for working so hard with him at school as well as his TOD and SLP!

Tomorrow Brayden, Timmy, Papa, and Brandon are going to Jacksonville, Fl to watch the Jacksonville Suns play baseball. Us girls will be having a nice day at home without the boys! Have a good time boys!

Fog

2009-08-26T18:22:00.003-04:00

The past two mornings have been foggy. The first morning Brayden told me it was clouds. I told him it was fog. This morning on the way to school in the back seat he said "Mac Mac look fog." Very surprising that he remembered what it was called and told Kenzee about it. We didn't really even talk about it yesterday morning. Before we left for school he went over to his calendar and started signing the days of the week. He's still getting a few mixed up, but we're working on them. Usually he's grumpy in the morning so it surprised me that he wanted to show me. He must have had a big day at school, he's passed out on the rocking chair. He hasn't even had dinner or a bath yet. I'll just let daddy handle that when he gets in from work. I don't want Bray mad at me for waking him up.

Stitches out and a new hair cut

2009-08-25T21:35:00.005-04:00

Timmy and I decided that we would take Kenzee Thurs. to get her stitches out. Well she had other plans. Her lip completely scabbed over the stitches. We were concerned about how exactly they would be removed. Kenzee comes to me as I'm walking down the hall and tells me she scratched the scab off her lip. I ask why and she said b/c they're hurting her. I'm guess they were itching. She almost scratched them right out. I tried to remove them myself, but was afraid I'd hurt her. So my plan of Thurs. morning removal turned into this morning. I woke up with a sick headache. I just didn't feel like sitting at the hospital at all. But we went on and the nurse that put the stitches in took them out. One little cut of a stitch and the first one was out and the second one was just hanging out. She screamed and everything as she put it. I think she was more afraid of the nurse b/c she did the stitches than of getting them out. She was a big girl though. It's healing up nicely. I just hope it doesn't scar bad. In the pic she was showing the nurse how well her lip has healed up.

I gave Daddy(Timmy) a hair cut yesterday. I usually buzz the boys when I cut their hair, but Timmy told me he didn't want it short again and he's letting it grow out. So I told him I'd try my best to do a "real" hair cut. I must say I'm proud of myself b/c he was happy with the cut and it looks good. So when I picked Bray up from school today I asked him if he wanted his hair cut? He was excited. The boy loves getting his hair cut. So I thought well if I could cut Timmy's hair just fine I can cut Bray's too. He was fidgety, not still like he is when I take him to get it cut. I took my time and did the best I could for my first time. It looks good and I'm very proud of myself. After I got done and Bray looked at it in the mirror he came back and told me "Mama thank you!" He can be sweet when he wants. He put gel in his hair made it messy. Another way he likes to wear it.

Oh and this week we are working on the letter H and the words brown, grey, and my. For show and tell this Friday he's going to take his hermit crabs to school. Everyday he comes home from school and goes over to his calendar, points to Friday and says crabs. He's so excited to take them.

Busy weekend

2009-08-24T08:28:00.003-04:00

I spent the weekend taking care of my Nana (Nah-Nah). She is my grandmother that raised me, but to me she's my mother. She had one of those dental implants put in Thursday and got really really sick. I took her back to the dentist Friday to make sure everything was ok. Saturday morning she was still sick so I cooked her some chicken and corn soup. She was able to eat some of that. I left around lunch time to head to Jacksonville, Fl. We went down there to Costco to do our shopping in bulk for the essentials we needed. They also have the cheapest organics in bulk. We also went to Whole Foods Market, but I really didn't get a whole lot there this time. Timmy and I did sneak in a dinner date at Carrabba's Italian Grill. We didn't take the kids with us down there. We need the backseat open when we go to Costco. I spend most of the day yesterday at Nana's house cleaning up and cooking dinner for Papa. Thank you Timmy for cleaning up our house and taking care of the kids while I was taking care of Nana! You're the best and I love you!
Tomorrow we are clear to get the stitches out of Kenzee's lip. She had an appt. with the dentist to get a filling for tomorrow. I called just a while ago and they won't take out the stitches or fill the tooth with the stitches in. So I cancelled and rescheduled for Sept. 15. I'm scheduled for surgery Sept. 9. This next month is going to be really fun.

2 stitches later......

2009-08-20T23:29:00.003-04:00

Today has been a horrible day. We get home and Brayden puts in to go swimming. Well while he's walking into the living room with his swim trunks he slaps Kenzee in the face with them. So I tell him no swimming today. He carries on and on and on, so that earned him time out. Then I had to drive over to Aunt Jenni's house to get the supplies I needed to make Bray's guitar for show and tell tomorrow. By the time we get back home it's 5:30 pm and we should have ate dinner by now and I'd yet to do homework or cook at this time. So I decide to go on and cook and do homework after we eat. Brayden continues on with aggravating and hitting and pushing and won't leave Mackenzee alone for anything. So I tell her to go in her room, shut the door, and play kitchen while I cook that way Brayden won't mess with her. In the mean time I'm cooking and Bray was in the living room putting together puzzles. Feeling stressed I text Shari to see if she would come over and help Bray with homework while I finish cooking. Well next thing I know I hear Kenzee screaming bloody murder. I turn around and coming down the hall is Kenzee pouring blood. I instantly started crying b/c it just freaked me out to see so much blood coming from her and all I could think is it her nose? Her teeth busted out? Her lip? I grab a paper towel and wet it to start clearing away blood to find out the source. Her lip...a big huge hole in her top lip! Her front teeth were lose, a chunk of gum missing from the top of her front tooth. While crying and freaking out I call Shari to come over now! She runs over. We work on cleaning her up and putting pressure on the cut. I finally get her to tell me what happened. She says Brayden hit me in the mouth with the baseball bat. I asked what were they doing and she tells me playing baseball in her room. At some point he snuck down there. I call on a family member that's a nurse and tell her what it looks like and that it's stopped bleeding except for when she talks. She tells me to head to the ER to see about durmabond or stitches. We get there and instantly they took her back for stitches. I had to lay on her while they gave her the numbing shot. When they came back to do the stitches she was freaking out and they wanted to sedate her. NO WAY! I calmed her down and sat her in my lap. They were able to do the stitches with her in my lap. It took two hours in the hours in the hospital b/c she was so freaked out. I just cried with her. I felt so bad for her! After they got done with left with a script for antibiotics and stickers galore. Shari bought her an ice cream and when we got home we finally got to eat dinner. She's passed out now and I'm headed for a shower and bed. I'll post pics tomorrow.

2009-08-19T21:20:00.003-04:00

Letter of the week: G (letter sound as well)
Words: Orange and yellow

As each week passes the more that's adding up to the list that needs work. Brayden's evaluations for mid. Aug. have come in and we have some extra work on our plate. Everyday we go through the sight words from this week and previous weeks to keep it all fresh as well as the letter of the week(s) and sound(s). Our extra work is on the days of the week, months, positional words(on to of, behind...ext.), letter sounds, and the 4 seasons. This all has to be known and passed by the end of August. We've been working our butts off. After we do our words, letters, sounds, and whatever reading homework he has he does not want to work on the "extra" stuff.

On another note he's been using the new words he's learning from reading in everyday language. Each day he's becoming easier to understand. Everyday he's coming home with a green smiley face as well! So far his behavior has been great at school. His teachers said he would sit in that chair all day like a statue and not move until we tell him. Then I walk in to get him and he starts running around like a mad man. Go figure! Well we've got our work cut out for us. He's listening well in class and following directions. Home is a bit of a different story. I catch the attitude and frustration. I understand that he's mentally and physically tired from all that he's done at school during the day though.

Getting my crafty side going

2009-08-12T23:23:00.003-04:00

Well I've spent the past 2 hours making stuff off the listening room web page.(http://www.hearingjourney.com/) I printed out this months mural of the beach and glued it all together. I printed out the weekly calendar that helps teach the concept of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I'm going to have Shari take them to school and get them laminated for me. Thanks Shari! I also made the hear heard see saw game. I've already come up with a few different ways to use that game. I always go to the website every week and save the activities to my computer until I get the chance to use them. Since I'm on the subject of speech and games in working with his sight words we've come up with a few games. I made a sight word poster board over the summer. It consist of a plain white poster board, velcro, sight words wrote out on index cards, and different color construction paper cut into shapes. Everyday I randomly put the index cards on the board and hand him the different colored shapes. He has to then put the colors to the correct sight word. He does really good with this. I also bought binder rings and made flashcards. He is in control when we work with them. He will ask me what the word is and I give him the answer. I usually get most of them wrong and he corrects me. This way I know he knows the words without seeing the colors.

For those of you who are working on speech/letter sounds here are some tricks we are currently using. For /f/ I put my finger right under the bottom lip and make him say /f/. This way your finger pushes up on the bottom lip and forces his teeth to touch the lip as he says it, making him say it correctly. For /p/ I've used 2 different things, one being a birthday candle and the other being a single sheet of tissue. When you say /p/ correctly the flame flickers and the tissue paper moves. For /s/ we use our hand like signing fish only in bigger waves like a snake slithering. It's all visual cues to help him. I hope this helps someone else.

Bright eyed and bushy tailed

2009-08-11T20:43:00.004-04:00

This is a pic from this morning just before we headed out the door to take Bray to school. They were both in a good mood. We've been really busy! Over the weekend Aunt Jenni and I took the kids to the beach on Sat. We had a blast. We will be heading back this coming Sat. The kids got a hermit crab each. It seems like since school has started it's been go, go, go.

This week he's working on the letter is O. His sight words are black and green in conjunction to the ones he had last week. We've had to tweak his routine a little. Instead of coming home and playing we go over homework and sight words first. He wasn't wanting to work later in the evening like he did last year. Great news! Brayden is getting moved up to the next reading group b/c he's doing so well! I am beyond PROUD of him! Here I was scared that he would have so much trouble and he's being moved up. We've really gotta work on those letter sounds full time b/c that's the next step for him in reading. Sounding out those letters to go beyond his sight words. He can do it I know he can. :o)

Also over the weekend we took him to get new boots. After going to several stores we wound up at the local sporting goods store b/c of size issues. Glad we went there though! Of course Brayden goes straight to the baseball gear and starts trying on gloves and helmets. I tell the nice man what size I think he needs and brings out an extra size just in case. Well as the man ironically named Timmy put the boots on Brayden he was talking with him. He noticed his ears and started asking questions. Brayden is a little unsure of people at first. So I tell him what they are and why he has them. I guess this tugged on his heart strings and made him feel for Brayden. After finding that this 5 year old little boy needed a 2 and a half boot he takes them up front for us to pay for them. Brayden was still looking at baseball stuff and it caught the man's eye. He says any helmet over there in that box I'll give to you for $5(box marked helmets $35), I know you have a lot of safety issues for him. I said thank you so much! Well when we go to pay finally he had walked to the back. When he came back he gave Bray a carhartt water bottle, 2 flashlights, and a fold out seat to put in his batting bag all for free! Not to include that he gave us a $20 discount on an expensive pair of boots. Brayden loved it all and most of all those Georgia boots. He didn't have to do any of it, but we appreciate it all! Thanks Timmy!

I am a......

2009-08-06T21:39:00.002-04:00

This week Brayden's class has been working on the letter L, sight words(I,am,red,blue), and reading simple sentences. Brayden came home with a book he made yesterday with his HOH teacher Anna. Each page he drew a picture and wrote I am a.... whatever the picture was. Today he came home with a worksheet that they had to fill in I and am in the correct spaces. I asked him to read it to me and he did perfectly. I can't believe how fast he's learning. I'm so excited that he's learning new words and vocab. He's also learning how to build sentences which is important for his speech and language. Friday's are show and tell. Show and tell is based on the letter of the week. So this afternoon I asked him what he wanted to take. I had to explain what show and tell is. I'm not so sure that he got it. So I told him to chose from Lillie(our yorkie) and lightning. He chose lightning. So we printed out 3 pictures of lightning for him to take and talk about. This is going to be interesting. Timmy and I are going to go and I will try to get a video. I don't know how he will react getting in front of the class and a video camera. We'll see how it goes. His behavior has been great this week.

He's got it

2009-08-04T22:13:00.003-04:00

Brayden had another great day at school. I walked him in again this morning. He told me which door to go in, what hall to walk down, and all the turns to get to his classroom. I'm debating if I want to let him walk in alone in the morning. Although I know he knows exactly where his classroom is I'm just over protective. I picked him up from school today and his cousin Hunter (who is 8) wanted to come home with us to play for a while. Of course we went swimming. I let the boys swim until 4:30 pm. We headed home to cook dinner. By this time Kenzee came home from her sleep over at her cousins. A storm blew in. Brayden actually didn't freak out. I got supper done and we all ate around 5:30 pm. I washed the kids after that. Brayden and I worked on his sight words after he got out of the bath. His words for this week are I, blue, am, and red. I signed them while I said them about 4 times a each. I then would show him the cards I made and ask him what the word was. He quickly got I and am. He kept getting blue and red confused until I told him red starts with r and blue with a b. I think we worked on them for only 30 mins. Before I put them up I asked him one more time what each card said and he was able to tell me with no problem. I thought it was going to be hard to teach him the sight words. It's a relief that it wasn't, he was grouchy and didn't want to do it. But I turned it into a game and he went along with it. He got a sucker for a reward. I asked him to pick out his clothes for tomorrow. Of course he would want to wear jeans. I haven't bought any new jeans b/c it's still hot here and all his have huge holes in the knees. So while he brushed his teeth and got ready for bed I told Timmy I was going to head to town to buy him some jeans and a few pairs of khaki shorts. Belks had a half off sale going on. I got him 2 pairs of khaki pants, 3 pairs of jeans, 2 pairs of khaki shorts, and a surfing shirt I knew he would like. So when he gets up in the morning he will have 3 pairs of jeans for chose from. He's planning on wearing his camo hunting shirt and boots. One minute he's a rocker dude and the next a country boy. We love him all the same. Well I'm off to bed. 6:30 am gets her fast. Good night!

Yay for school!

2009-08-03T22:49:00.003-04:00

Today was the first day of kindergarten for Brayden. He was so excited last night before bed to know he was going to school when he woke up. He beat me up this morning. I had the alarm clock set for 6:30 am, I heard him turn on the tv at 6:20 am. I got on up and got him dressed and his hawk done. Breakfast was a little issue, but he decided he wanted a half of jelly sandwhich. I don't know, he decided that after I offered toast and jelly. He ate and that's all that mattered. While he ate I got his lunch box out the fridge and his ice pack out of the freezer. We had all the supplies he needed in bags to take in. He brushed his teeth and then waited for Daddy to come get us. Well I say us, I thought I was going....Brayden had other plans. He told me "no you here, me daddy walk with school." For me to stay at the house and Daddy would walk him into school. So I wrote Timmy a long list of things to tell the teacher and waited nervously for him to get back so I would know how he did going in. Timmy said Brayden remembered just where his room was. When they got in there he went straight to his locker and put his stuff in it. He never looked back at Timmy. He said he waited around a few mins. to see if he was ok and then went on. I did call Anna his deaf ed. teacher to let her know his left ear has a lot of static in it and to put his FM system on the right ear until the new one comes in. We're still waiting for his right FM microlink to come in. Over night his left cochlear freaked out. I don't know what's up with the thing. Kenzee and I played with play dough while Bray was at school and ate lunch. We talked and talked and boy can she talk. It was finally time to go get Bray. We walked in to get him b/c I wanted to chat with the teachers on how he did. He did great! They didn't have any issues at all. He went with Anna(deaf ed./HOH teacher) and Tish(SLP) without a problem. He was so excited to tell me about playing in PE and his frog tag for the lunch room. He showed me what they did in class. They told me that Timmy just kept talking to them and watching Brayden like he didn't want to leave him :(. Poor Daddy. I'm so excited for him this year. I think it's going to be a great year. He's controlling himself better and his behavior has been good. So after school I took the kids swimming. I taught Brayden how to dive into the pool. He loved that. Kenzee had a blast swimming all over the deep end. It still trips me out that she's swimming in the deep end without floaties and that Bray is jumping into the deep end and swimming all over the place. I'm so proud of my babies :-). We came home and took a bath. I fixed salad and steak. The kids ate and Bray laid on the chair to watch ghost busters. The next thing I know he's out of it. It was only 6:30 pm! His normal bedtime during the school year is 7:30 pm. He was tuckered out from his big day! Well Kenzee is spending the night off and Bray will be at school tomorrow, so I'm going to clean this nasty house of mine! Wish me luck.

Everybody has been sick :( School starts Monday!

2009-07-31T23:36:00.003-04:00

Timmy come home sick last week. He goes to the doc and finds out he has tonsillitis and laryngitis. They put him on meds and rest. He couldn't talk even if he wanted to. Timmy doesn't talk much anyways. So he's been out of work for the better part of a week now. He'll be going back Sunday. Kenzee had a check up for her ears and eye. She was cleared, but while at the doc Timmy got the doc to look at Bray's eyes. Guess what? He's got the freaking pink eye Kenzee just got rid of. Later that day Bray starts running a high temp right before it was time to go to open house at his school. So I gave him some Tylenol and we go so he can get in school mode. Brayden of course wouldn't talk to anyone. He's very quiet around new people. His teacher did get Parker in his class, so maybe that will help him adjust quickly. He's super excited about the new school! I'm so glad!

His teachers are going to be great! He's actually going to have 4 teachers in his class this year. Mrs. Guess and Mrs. Johnson are the regular teachers. Mrs. Corbitt is the para pro and Mrs. Carden is a student teacher which happens to be the mother of Bray's cousin that's deaf and has a CI. If you add in his H.O.H teacher Mrs. Anna and Mrs. Harris his SLP you've got 6. I'm hopeful for a great year. He's made some progress this summer, not what I was hoping. He did pick up random phrases. He kills me with saying What? all the time. It's gotten to where I get tickled everytime he says it. We're definitely. going to have to work on who, what, when, where, how questions hard. Anyone with any ideas?

Anyways, Brayden was still feeling bad so Timmy took him to the doc the next morning. Now Brayden has what Timmy did on top of Kenzee's pink eye. So to keep Kenzee from getting it again b/c Bray is digging all in his eyes we've sent her to stay with her Aunt for a little while. Brayden is now on antibiotics, Timmy is still taking his, and Kenzee is good for the moment. I'm hoping everyone gets better soon! It's been heck around here taking care of all these sick babies and Daddy has been the worst one of them all.

Today we took Bray to town to get his school supplies. He got his hair cut and of course it's in his fohawk. We let him pick out his folders and a few other things that I didn't get from Target. The things I got were blue so he was happy. :-)
I couldn't believe he picked out a green and red folder to go along with his blue ones. I figured he would get them all blue. So to let him decorate his binder tonight I printed out a paper with his name on it and found in the clip-art on the work program a cloud with lightening. He was so happy. Then I printed him off a coloring sheet off the family fun website and he colored that and stuck it under the plastic of the back side. He's ready to go now.

Brayden starts back school Monday.
Come Sunday night it'll be back to packing lunches, 7:30pm bedtime, and sight words.....on top of all our speech work. The summer went to quickly, but I'm glad he's going back to school!

What's that noise?

2009-07-27T22:50:00.004-04:00

A day or so ago Brayden walked up to me, takes one of his cochlears off and says "Mama, coco(cochlear) broke.....what heck? Beep, beep, beep." So I look at him like ok? Take the cochlear from his hand and realize his batteries are dead and he heard the beeping that signals to him that they're dead. He's still looking at me and shrugs his shoulders and says again "What heck?" I was was excited that he realized something was going on with his CI and brought it to me. We always have to watch the light to make sure everything is working right and for dead batteries since he won't tell you when they die. So I made a HUGE deal about him taking it to me and hearing the beeps. I told him that when the batteries die it makes the beeping sound you heard. He looks up and simply says"OKAY" and goes on his way. So I thought well this is a one time thing and won't ever happen again. Wouldn't you know that his other ear died today. He comes up to me and says "Mama, beep beep....dead." I couldn't believe it! I'm so excited b/c this shows he's paying attention to what's going on with his CI now. This is great progress for him.

As far as "What heck?". That's a lovely phrase(What the heck?) he picked up randomly from me while stuck in a traffic jam on the way to his mapping appt. in Jacksonville, Fl. Not the best thing for him to say, but he does use it in the right context. Good example of him not using the connecting word "the".

Excuse the dirty room...that would be Mr. Brayden's.

Summer is already over?

2009-07-27T11:40:00.003-04:00

There's been a lot of craziness going on around here. That is very usual for the Courson household though. Brayden has been very busy playing speech therapist to Cow Cow and Kenzee. Obviously Cow Cow is having issues hearing things clearly. Brayden has been putting him in the sound booth, saying the ling sounds, and asking Cow Cow if he hears it. It surprised us that he was doing this b/c usually if he doesn't have to do anything dealing with his ears he's happy. Both the kids found the color pipe cleaners that we use for our crafts. I just didn't know they were fireworks. They made them into squiggly shapes and Bray found an old toy walking talking that looked like a lighter and pretended to light them. He'd say watch, watch .....make the sound of a firework being lit and move go, go, go......POW! They had a blast doing that. Mama had a blast making them pick up the thousand pipe cleaners in the yard. Timmy and I took off to the beach Friday. We had a great time. If you've never been to a Joe's crab shack you need to find one! That place was a blast! It was a much needed day away. Timmy woke up sick Saturday. It's gotten way worse. He's home sick today and we're heading to the doctor at 2:30 pm this afternoon. He's only able to eat soup, he can't talk, and his throat is so red. Poor Daddy. Me and the kids went swimming yesterday for a while. Kenzee decided she wanted to jump in the deep end of the pool to Leon. This brought on a swimming lesson and might I add a successful one. She was swimming all over the deep end of that pool yesterday without her floaties at 3 years old. I couldn't believe how fast she picked it up. At the moment we're trying to get everything ready for school. This is Brayden's last week home. He starts school on Aug. 3. I'm glad he's headed back, but gonna miss him too. It'll be nice to have time girl time for me and Mackerdoo. I'm sure she will be happy to get a break too. Well that's what's been going on.

A light at the end of the tunnel.

2009-07-22T21:29:00.002-04:00

I've been really upset the past week or two. It all has to do with Brayden and not knowing what's going on with my son. The fact that we can't find anyone around here to help us. I've been on the phone with our insurance company the past two days trying to find out why they won't pay for a psychological evaluation and complete work up on Bray. Well after the first day on the phone with united healthcare I was informed that we have a special mental health insurance. Really? I never knew this! How come I wasn't told of this before now? It's through a company called cigna. I called this new company to find out what our group number is and who is in our network. Oh no, it doesn't work that way. I was asked why was I needing these services? I went on to tell this young man about how many things my son has been diagnosed with and we can't get a solid answer and so on. Well he says he will have a condition specific team member for the autism specialist to call me back to give me information on clinics near us and whatever else I may need. It took two days for them to call me back. I know that isn't long, but for me it seemed like an eternity! Come to find out there are no clinics in our network. So at this point we are working to get the Marcus Autism Center to do a single case agreement for Brayden. I hope and pray that they will accept the agreement and we can get Bray in there. Please pray for us!

Pool buddies

2009-07-21T16:12:00.003-04:00

Yesterday Masyn came over for a little while to hang out with Brayden. We took them over to Shari's to swim since it was so hot. Brayden is swimming across the pool now in the deep end. That's a huge accomplishment for him. Brayden watched Masyn dive down to the bottom of the deep end. A few mins. later all I see is Brayden's feet vertical under water, he dove down to the deep end with Masyn. I was shocked that he did it. He was so proud of himself. The deep end of Shari's pool is 8 ft. The boys played for a few hours in the pool. Right before we left I signed to Brayden to show Masyn how he does a flip into the pool. Dumb idea! Poor Brayden was standing on the side of the pool and jumped straight up and leaned to do the flip into the pool, well he landed flat on his head on the concrete, bounced off the concrete and into the pool. I ran over to him and snatched him out of the pool. He was screaming and rubbing his head. Of course he didn't want me, he screamed for his Daddy! He has a huge knot on the top of his head with a blood streak. I felt so bad. I don't think he'll be doing anymore flips into the pool. I have video of the kids playing, but still haven't figured out how to upload them and add them to the blog. I'm still new to all this stuff. His head is ok today. He's actually letting you touch it. In fact he begged to go swimming a min. ago. Brayden has never had any swim lessons. Unless you want to count Timmy, Shari, and I working with him. Over the past 3 summers or so he's really made great progress. Each year he's gotten better and better. I can officially say he can swim. :-)

Mommy time out :D

2009-07-18T13:49:00.002-04:00

Timmy and the kids are headed to the beach for the day. They're going with their cousin. I'm staying home and getting some much needed time to myself. I can't tell you how long it's been since I didn't have kids or hubby around. I'm going to enjoy my time!

Extremely tired.....

2009-07-17T12:27:00.005-04:00

For two nights I haven't slept. Kenzee kept me up all night crying with her ears. I call the doc this morning and they're not in today. Just great! I wind up with her at the ER anyways. I took her around 9 am. They actually got us in really fast. Usually it's like a 5 hours wait. We were the only ones in the ER though. They took her back and checked her out. She's got swimmer's ear in the right ear, middle ear infection in the left, and conjunctivitis in her right eye. She did really good through the day, but here it is night and she's crying again. All I have to say at this point is I'm sure glad Daddy is off tomorrow b/c I can't take another night of no sleep.

Brayden has been on my ever loving last nerve today. That picking and pestering he does. It's enough to send me over the edge. I wish he had a volume control. He's been so loud! He's been losing his temper really bad these past two days. It's been hard for me to control mine with him fighting with Kenzee and then screaming at the both of us when he gets angry. Some days it's just more than I can bare. I tried to work with him today on some speech and he wasn't having it. I'm starting to just get used to the fact that maybe his speech is as good as it's going to get. It's exhausting day in and day out playing this wild game of guess what I'm saying. His conversational speech is like a really great game of sherades/sign/words/jargan. He has a love/hate relationship with his CI's. He can love them today and not want them off for anything, then tomorrow he can hate them. He won't put them on or constantly takes them off and holds his ears so you can't put them back on. Today was a mixed day of love/hate. One min. he wanted them and the next he had hidden them. He has great hearing. I just think he would rather be deaf. He loves to watch the tv without his implants on. I think he likes his world of deafness better than our world of sound. Sometimes I wonder if we did the right thing. No matter, it's done and we'll continue to do the best we can to teach him speech and help him hear to his fullest potential. I so wanted to be one of the stories you hear of. The young child who got the CI and just took off with their speech. Not so for us, we're on the other side of the fence. I feel there is a reason though. Maybe for us to help others who's kids aren't making the great strides they once thought would happen. Here's a good idea for Cochlear America's. Put out two stories, one of the child that does great and another of one who struggles everyday like Bray.

I'm in a funk and things have really been getting to me lately. I'll take any advice anyone has.

One hurting little ear and new words.

2009-07-16T21:31:00.006-04:00

Seems like Kenzee has swimmer's ear or an ear infection. She spent the night with her aunt last night and kept her up all night crying with her ear. I wasn't told until this afternoon after the doctor was closed. Hopefully we can make it through the night and not have to go to the E.R. Even if we did go we couldn't get the medicine filled until the morning when the pharmacy opens. The joys of living in a small town. We'll have to get up really early and call the doctor for an appt. They usually tell us to bring them on in right then. She's done really good with her ears for a long time now. Hopefully a round of antibiotics will take care of it and she'll be good to go. We almost had to put tubes in her ears when she was a year old. She kept ear infections for months at a time.

Brayden seems to be getting better with his talking when he's around Parker and Alec. While the boys were over today he pointed to Alec and said "his name?" He's never asked for someone's name before. He even said Alec perfectly. He also learned the words heavy and light. He tried to pick me up and I told him I was heavy and then he picked Kenzee up and I told him she's light. School starts back Aug. 3 and we're going over the alphabet, counting to 30, and the first week sight words to refresh him. I'm nervous about him starting kindergarten this year with all the G-Kid testing they will be doing. I was hoping we would have his speech sounds down pat better. It's just going to take more time. So we'll be using sign to make sure he does know his sight words so he will be counted for knowing them even if they can't understand what he's saying. I can't believe he's starting big boy school. Aug. 3 is right around the corner!

Dentist

2009-07-14T18:36:00.004-04:00

Today the kids had an appt. with the dentist to get their teeth cleaned. I usually take them both at the same time by myself. Today I decided i better get some help and I'm glad I did. I called Shari up and asked her to go. They called Bray back first. Knowing that if he sees Kenzee get upset he will just completely melt down. They tried to do the bite wing xrays again and he still can't do them. He has a really bad gag reflex. They can never do the xrays. He always melts down after they try. He got upset, but not too bad. He say there watching tv while he waited for the lady to come clean his teeth. They're really good with Brayden. They have a lot of patients and know how to work with him and communicating with him. He did great getting his teeth cleaned, but afterwards waiting for Dr. Smith to come in and look over his teeth....ugh..he wasn't having that. It seemed like it took forever! He screamed and cried and wanted to leave. Brayden did as good as Brayden could do. He didn't have any cavities and everything checked out fine. Meanwhile they went on and took Kenzee back, they never just do her while I'm still with Brayden. I'm guessing b/c I had Shari there today they decided to. Well Kenzee did really good. She whined a little. She actually asked for the little wrap that they use on the unruly kids, they said they've never had anyone to ask for it before. Haha! She has a small cavity. So Daddy will be taking her back to get that filled. Mama has already been through 3 molars. She's got soft teeth like her Mama. Thank God Brayden has his Daddy's teeth. I couldn't imagine trying to give him a shot and drill. Oh boy! They told me he would have to be sent somewhere he could be put to sleep. So Kenzee goes back soon and they both go back in January. Fun fun.

Notice Barbie's bib?

For a treat for not screaming and killing everyone's ears we took them to Chick-fil-a to eat and play. There were 3 other kids in there as well. The mom comes up and started asking questions about Brayden and his implants. Her youngest boy has been diagnosed with conductive hearing loss and they've been going to Nemours. Of course I have nothing but great things to say about Nemours. We talked for a bit and I gave her my number if she had anymore questions. Here lately I've met a lot of ppl. dealing with hearing loss. It's amazing how many children in just this past few months we've met with some form of hearing loss. When Brayden was born there was only 1 other small child.

New experiences

2009-07-11T21:23:00.004-04:00

We got off to a late start this morning. Grabbed everything that we needed for the day and headed to Lowes. We made it to Lowes right on time. The room was already full of kids building their treasure boxes. These people must have gotten there really early. There were two spots left at the table and we grabbed them. Other people that came in late had to build their treasure boxes on the floor. I sign all the forms that had to be signed and we began building our treasure boxes. Let me tell you, it was an experience to say the least. Trying to build 2 treasure boxes with two kids by myself. Bray could look at the instructions and pick out the parts that went together. I would give him the right size nails and hold the wood together as he hammered it. It was so loud in that room from all the kids hammering. I was surprised that Brayden didn't take off his "ears". He didn't act like it bothered him at all. While he was hammering his nails in I would put Kenzee's together and let her take a few wacks at the nails and then I would go ahead and knock them in. By that time Bray was ready for the next step. This went on for 45 minutes and they finished. I was shocked that we got done so quickly. The kids loved it. I look forward to taking them back. So then it was off to grab some breakfast and head to Masyn's birthday party. We opted to stop at Ellianos a coffee shop to grab some frozen tuxedos. Of course the kids didn't have coffee in them. It's more like a frozen chocolate milk for them.

Masyn's part started at 11 am. They rented one of those huge water slides for all the kids to play on. Brayden and Kenzee were excited to play on it. Brayden and Masyn stuck together as usual. They are like two peas in a pod. Kenzee played with the boys until a group of girls showed up. She knew the little girls from the park Aunt Jenni takes her to play at. She had a good time hanging out with them and talking up a storm. Kenzee is so grown acting and talks way older for her age. We ate hot dogs and chips and soon after birthday cake. We left around 1:30 pm to head for McKay's birthday party. We didn't stay at McKay's party too long b/c the kids were tired and ready to leave. Kenzee went home with her Aunt Jenni and Brayden came home with me. It wasn't too long after we got home that he sat down on the couch to watch a movie and passed out sitting up. He was so worn out. He slept for a good 2 hours. I cooked dinner while he was asleep. When Daddy got home from work we ate dinner and headed to get Kenzee. Of course as soon as we pick her up they start fighting a bickering. I wasn't in any mood to listen to it.

I hate riding in the car with the kids. They fight constantly, yell, scream, cry, can't keep their hands to themselves. Ughhh. This is when Brayden's speech really bugs me. When I really get upset that he isn't talking in sentences and just making noises instead of words. He will call me over and over and over and over until I look at him instead of just telling me what he wants. Brayden's conversational speech is more like gestures and a few words here and there and a lot of jabber. It's a lot of guessing what he's talking about most of the time and it's exhausting and draining to deal with every day. Well another thing I can't stand is when Timmy and I are talking and Brayden starts calling me and he just gets louder and louder. I finally lost my cool and started yelling back at him that he's to stay quiet while Daddy and I are talking unless he says excuse me Mama. There are times that I just don't think he's understanding the words that come out of my mouth. Well tonight was not one of them. A few minutes later Timmy and I start talking again and a little voice from behind me says "Muh-Me Mama". I looked over at Timmy and said this drives me crazy that he acts like he doesn't understand what's being said to him, yet when I got upset he decides to listen. I turn back and look at him and tell him thank you for saying excuse me and what is it? He went on to tell me about the motorcycle in his few words mixed with gestures and jabbering. These are the times I just wish he could speak in full sentences. We work so hard, yet I don't get why it isn't clicking with him. I held up my hand to count out the words on my fingers to get him to say "I see a motorcycle." As long as you say the sentence slow word by word he will repeat you, but to just expect him to say it back right after you isn't going to happen. He mummers through the words. So we passed another one and he held up his hand and touched each finger as he said "cycle, cycle, cycle, cycle". Instead of saying "I see a motorcycle." It made me laugh. At least he did try. Ohhhh boy. What am I going to do with this kid?

Today was a great day. I knew tonight would be rough and it has been. The kids are in bed and Mommy and Daddy are headed to sleepy town too!

Productive day

2009-07-11T00:19:00.002-04:00

We got up early this morning. I decided since it wasn't raining that I was going to cut the grass while I could. I got that done. I took the kids swimming, but that only lasted for 30 mins. b/c rain clouds headed our way. We came back home and I put the kiddos down for a nap. Brayden of course did his usual play in his room, but it still gives me a break and him some down time. Kenzee was out like a light. So when Kenzee got up Brayden came out of his room and told me he wanted to watch a moo-e(movie). He picked out Brother Bear 2. They both begged me to make them a smoothie. They drank their smoothie while watching the movie and I watched with them. We decided to go back to the pool when the movie got over. They played for a good two hours until Daddy got home at 7pm. We got them out of the pool and headed to town to grab a quick bite to eat at Rancheros and 2 birthday presents for tomorrows birthday parties. More on that in a min. While at Wal-Mart we ran into an older lady that just ran up to Timmy asking if those were cochlear implants? I was getting an onion at the time and quickly made it back to the buggie to see what was going on. I hear her say hold on let me find my husband. So as she went around the corner I ask Timmy what is going on. He tells me her husband just got a CI in his left ear this past Dec. He's thinking of getting another in the right ear. I was excited! I love talking about Bray's CI's and what they've done for him. Just like all the other CI mom's out there. Their names were Donny and Betty. They were so nice and wanted to know how Bray liked having two and did we notice a big difference in him after getting the second one. Comes to find out they use the same surgeon we do, Dr. Goldsmith. Mr. Donny lost his hearing due to German Measles when he was a boy. His sister has a profound hearing loss as well. He was so excited to talk to Brayden. Though Brayden wouldn't hardly talk back. They did get to hear him say a few things and of course could only understand certain words. Mr. Donny told me not to give up on Brayden. That he may not like his implants now, but as he gets older he will learn to use them to his full advantage. He told me he hated his hearing aids as a boy and wouldn't talk to anyone either. So maybe this was my sign that Brayden is going to be alright. Mr. Donny has great speech, though he was able to use his residual hearing and it put him a step ahead of Brayden. I have faith that eventually Brayden will learn that speech is important and just amaze me out of no where with his words. He asked if Brayden signs or reads lips. I told him he reads lips really well and has since he was a baby and that he also signs(since 7 months old). It was really nice to talk with them. Mr. Donny and Mrs. Betty live by my best friends in-laws. We swapped numbers and I look forward to keeping in touch with them. Specially with him looking into getting a bilateral. We made it home and I washed the kids as Timmy put up the groceries. I put both the kids to bed and sat down on the couch for a moment to rest. Brayden comes out of his bedroom as usual....bedtime is ALWAYS a fight. This time he just came to me with "blue"(his blankie) and laid in my arms and lap like a newborn baby. I kissed his head and tickled his back and face. The next thing I know he's passed out. I miss these times. Times like these are few and far in between. As I held him in my arms I come to realize how hard we are on him. After all he's only a little boy. My baby boy :).

We will be busy tomorrow. I'm going to take the kids to Lowes in the morning for a pirate treasure chest workshop. Brayden is so excited about this! He's been waiting 3 weeks for this. After that we're headed to his buddy Masyn's birthday party and then to McKay's birthday party. I know by the end of the day both of the kids will be tuckered out! It's going to be a long day. I dread the consequences of breaking the diet at tomorrows parties, I know there are going to be some meltdowns. I'll just do the best I can to deal! There's always bedtime. Phew!

Natural approach

2009-07-08T19:46:00.004-04:00

For many years now I've bought Dr. Sears books. I've always found them to be full of great information. Dr. Sears puts great information on his website(www.askdrsears.com) as well, enough to get you through any problem you're having with your baby/child. Both of my children were born with severe milk allergies. After going through every formula over the counter and prescribed by a stomach doctor, Kenzee only got worse. So I decided to look on Dr. Sears website and I found a Meyenberg goat milk baby formula recipe. That was our saving grace and I wish I had found it when we went through all the formulas with Brayden.

Then last year after going to all those doctors and getting so many meds thrown at Brayden I went back to the site to see what I could find on ADD/ADHD. I found a book he wrote on ADD and bought it. This is where I got all my info on doing the organic/natural diet with Brayden. As I've stated before the diet worked. Expensive, but it worked. A week or so ago I was back on the site looking up different things and found that he has wrote a new book called "The NDD Book" How nutrition deficit disorder affects your child's learning, behavior, and health, and what you can do about it- without drugs. I bought the book and haven't been able to put it down the past 2 days. It's a good book for anyone just starting the journey to a natural alternative for their kids. It gives recipes, guidance on what to buy and what not to buy, a 9 day meal plan, and supplements that your child needs.

I've bought many books since starting the organic/natural diet, but I always turn back to my Dr. Sears books. So for any of you out there that want to learn more about the diet or want to start it, this book is a great source of information! Brayden is back on the diet now. Well I shouldn't say just Brayden, our whole family is. We're seeing him change back to how he was 3 months ago when he was on it full force. He's happier, stays on task, the temper tantrums go away, and he's a joy to be around.

I hope that maybe this will help someone else on their journey. Good luck!

Update on Marcus Center.

2009-07-06T21:17:00.002-04:00

Well I got more not so great news when the Marcus Center called me back today to verify some information. After asking from the start would my insurance cover everything I was told yes.....well now I'm being told my insurance doesn't pay for anything to do with a psychologist. So I was then told that we would have to pay $280 an hour for 6-8 hours of evaluations. Are they crazy? It's getting beyond frustrating.

That was fast!

2009-07-06T13:47:00.004-04:00

The first day Brayden wanted nothing to do with his new right ear. He spent most of the day blinking his eyes at every noise. I did let him wear both ears that day. The next day he wore right ear only and did great. Yesterday all day was great. I didn't feel too hot and the kids we being pretty good. Brayden is understanding everything I ask or tell him in right ear only now! Maybe he didn't lose as much time as I had thought. His hearing in both ears are at the 10-15 dbs. range. He was having problems in the new ear understanding what was being said. In the past 2 days he's picked up some new words. His voice is getting clearer again, like it did after the right one was turned on. He's learned the word What?. Now when you say something to him he'll holler back What? Lol. Didn't take him long to figure that one out.

Now for some bad news. I got a call from the Marcus Center this morning that it will be 6-8 months before they can see him. Sooooo, we'll go ahead and make an appt. During this long time we'll stick firmly to the diet and go about our business. Things haven't been so bad this past few weeks. Timmy's schedule is about to change at work and that's going to mess Bray up a little, but we'll get through that. Mainly with him it's all about consistency. So that's just what we'll do.

Cool dude and spidergirl helping Daddy clean Mr. Brayden's room.

Hear what I am doing By Carolyn Hunsinger

2009-07-02T22:10:00.002-04:00

HEAR WHAT I AM DOING

Please, mom, hear what I am doing; see what I am saying.
The world is a crazy, confusing, scary place for me.
I can’t do the things other kids do—my body doesn’t work right.
But inside, I’m just like other kids—I need to be loved and appreciated;
I need to belong, to fit in; I need to contribute, to be useful; I need to be heard and understood; I desperately want you to be proud of me.
I want to tell you my needs, my feelings, my thoughts, but they get trapped inside me because I can’t get my mouth to say the words. There gets so much piled up inside me that sometimes it just blows up everywhere. And I know you’re disappointed in me, and you get angry at me, and somehow, it’s all my fault.
My actions speak so loudly, you can’t see what I am saying. Yet, my actions are my saying. My body says what my mouth can’t. I act out my feelings, but often, the acting out is such a problem that my feelings go unnoticed. But I have no other way of telling you my feelings.
I want to cooperate, to succeed, to contribute, to feel good about myself, but to do that I must be heard.
Please, mom, hear what I am doing; see what I am saying.
Carolyn Hunsinger

So that's why!?!?

2009-07-02T13:27:00.005-04:00

Brayden has been wearing his right ear only this past month to strengthen it up equally to his left(older) ear. Keep this in mind as you read on.

I wake up this morning with a headache from you know where. Timmy is working the night shift this week so he is still in the bed sleeping. I get Brayden's cochlears out and put them both on this morning so he isn't loud and wake his daddy up. Plus we're back to two ears after a month of only one. I've been noticing that his right ear has been blinking slower than his left. At night we let him wear them both for an hour. I couldn't remember if it was doing that after the last mapping or not. So I email Val to see if this is normal for them not to be blinking at the same rate. Gage and Brooke don't use the light so she wasn't sure either. Well I call his audiologist and can't get an answer. As I sat there thinking, the monitor earphones came to mind. I go to my closet and get them out of his box. I hooked them up to the right ear and to my surprise I hear nothing. I keep talking and once I got really loud I could finally hear an alien version of my voice. Oh my gosh! This ear has been blinking at a different speed since a week after his last mapping session a month ago! So that means all this month he's been wearing right ear only he's either heard nothing or an alien voice! No wonder he's been so loud and frustrated! When Brayden doesn't have his ears on he's very loud. Well this whole month I've been thinking he's just been showing his bad side(the bad behavior). Now knowing his right ear has been broken explains it all. Him being loud, not responding back to us and us thinking he's just turning us off like he does. Ughhh, I'm so upset with myself for not checking it sooner! So stupid on my part. Well for now on the monitor earphones are going by his dry and store and every morning they WILL be checked! Now he's screaming and crying b/c he doesn't want to wear the back up right ear b/c he's hearing everything after not hearing for so long. UGHHH!!!

I just called hear always yesterday to get a replacement left processor since it's lose connecting with the controller(bottom). I somehow got ahold of the same lady that put the left ear order through. Which is weird. It's usually someone different everytime. It's a good thing we have a back up for the right ear. We'd really be in trouble if we didn't since both ears are broken right now. Well I have the left ear tapped together until the new one arrives. I'm also trying to get insurance to pay for a left ear back up. I hope we are able to get one.

Poor Brayden all this past month he couldn't hear us and here we were thinking he was just showing out. I feel so bad for him! I wish he would tell us when his "ears" aren't working. He won't even tell us when the batteries are dead. So aggravating! So I guess we'll be wearing right ear only for this month to make up for last month. Bad part is he's being going to speech this month working on the right ear only and it hasn't done a bit of good.

Ok, I'm being told to come on. Brayden is excited he's going to chick-fil-a. Maybe we'll have a good day!

Pool time = fun time

2009-07-01T23:17:00.007-04:00

I love taking the kids to the pool. It gives me some peace for a bit and they absolutely love swimming. I'm so lucky to have a best friend/neighbor who loves us enough to let us swim in her pool anytime we want. It's the one place Brayden is happiest at. All I have to say is Brayden do you want to go swim? Before I get the word swim out of my mouth good he's already changed into his swim suit. Of course I have Kenzee running around yelling Mama I can't find my swim suit, do you know how to find it? HAHA! She's rotten! I hear some of the sweetest laughs come from those two while they're playing in the pool. Things are just so relaxed. Of course they fight and bicker from time to time. Usually it's worked out by sitting one or the other in the time out chair...usually Brayden. He's usually the instigator. Being in the pool is really about the only time Bray will let you love on him. I get the best kisses and hugs from that stinker. He's just stingy with them. Poor Mac Mac slipped going back into the deep end today and split the outside corner of her little eye on the hand rail. Bless her heart. I know that hurt. That eye has been red for the past 2 or 3 days and looks like we may be visiting the doc about it tomorrow if it doesn't look better.

This morning Brayden brought the magnetic alphabet letters to the couch. I was looking some things up on the internet for my Nana as he taps me and says Mama, look....C....uhh? C.....X, Daddy work choo choo train. I looked over and he had CSX done out on the couch with the letters. Timmy doesn't actually work for CSX, but he does work on the locomotives. He remembered the letters that were on the side of those trains. Mama needs to go back over the alphabet with him again.

YAY!

2009-06-30T21:48:00.004-04:00

Brayden repeated his first sentence today without me having to break down the sentence word for word. Usually I have to make him repeat every single word after me. I was laying in the bed this morning with my dogs. Brayden comes in in a frisky mood and starts picking at them. Well Lillie was just as grouchy about him being in there as I was and started growling and hiding. Well he went under the cover and got her out. I grabbed her back quickly and said "Leave my dogs alone!". In the strangest voice I've ever heard come from his mouth he says back quickly "Weev my dog lone". Timmy and I looked at each other and just started laughing. One b/c we were so shocked and amazed that he just repeated what I said and two b/c of the voice he said it in. We made a huge deal about it! I tried to get him to repeat something else and he wouldn't. He didn't want to hear it though. He just grinned and finally left me and the poor puppies alone for some tv time.

Brayden has many voices and tones. They change for anything he's talking about. This happens in one sentence. It may be 3 words, but most of the time those 3 words are in different pitches and tones. I don't understand why he does it, but hey he's using his words!

Something else we're proud of is a constant use of /c /! I think we have finally conquered it. He has a lot of problems with his speech sounds. He drops beginning and ending letters. He is also bad about substituting sounds for easier ones. This makes it hard to understand him. When in doubt call on Kenzee. She always knows what he's talking about and saying. I don't know what I would do without her sometimes.

Brayden did great using his signs(ASL) today. It's the best I've seen him do in a long time. He was signing full sentences. Usually it's a word here and sign there. Today he was signing up a storm. Regardless if he was needing the sign or not his father and I always said we'd continue to teach him ASL b/c we feel it is his first language.

I'm really proud of him today. It was a bit of a rough day, but he did get rewarded by going swimming at Shari's and a bike ride around the neighborhood.

Does everything have to be difficult?

2009-06-29T11:39:00.002-04:00

A night or so ago Brayden and I were talking and I was signing while talking. Quickly Brayden looked up at me, pointed at my hands, and told me NO! I asked him what is it? He again pointed to my hands and said NO! He then started talking and pointed to his mouth and told me YES! I said you don't want me to sign you want me to talk? He said yes. Oh boy...talk about throwing in another curve ball. So I'm thinking how do I handle this one? Usually we sign when something new is shown to him, if he's a long distance away, if he didn't understand what was said, in the pool, in the tub, and bed time. He uses it on his own whenever he feels like it. Brayden has always been big on acting things out. Even while signing he will start acting things out. Like he will tell you about a crab he saw at the beach. You can barely understand what he's saying(speaking) while acting it, but you know exactly what he's talking about. While talking, signing, and acting he's saying baby crab bucket dead. Yeah. Baby is signed and said, crab is acted out just like a crab, bucket is acted out, and dead is signed and said. Yeah is said. He usually says yeah after everything for some reason.

Maybe this will pass. Could just be b/c he's been moody the past few days. Who knows? I'll keep trying though. He's hardheaded!

Update on Brayden....

2009-06-27T14:19:00.003-04:00

This week has been pretty good with Brayden. Of course there were some rough patches. Yesterday was terrible though. He showed his bad side full force. I have some great news though. Yesterday morning I called the Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta, Ga. They took down all of our information and an intake nurse called me back within 15 mins. to take down more info. for finding the best doctor for him. Because he's been diagnosed with so many things and it's been over 2 years that he's had physiological evaluation we will first meet with the psychiatrist to get a clear diagnoses. From there he will be sent to the doctor that will best suit him. This clinic has everybody under one roof. I'm so excited to meet with them. I just have the feeling this is the right place. I hope the feeling isn't wrong. One thing for sure if he has Asperger's this is the place to find out! For the first time I have hope that we will get an answer. Sometime next week they will call us back with an appt. It's going to be a 4 hour drive for us. It will be well worth it to give us peace of mind. Thank you Erin for telling us about this clinic!

Recently I wrote about a family that we met with to talk about hearing loss. This family has become more than just someone we were willing to give information to. This family has become a part of our family. Robby and Erin recently found out through an ABR that Peyton has auditory neuropathy. She also found out that her insurance isn't going to pay for hearing aids. For some reason all these years I've kept Brayden's hearing aids. Never knowing why and every time I thought of donating them I just couldn't bare to do it. After Erin told me about the insurance deal it stayed on my mind and heavy on my heart. So I prayed about it. The next morning I called Erin and told her we were giving Brayden's hearing aids to Peyton. I know this will take a lot off her mind and give her son a great start into the hearing world. I believe God had His hand in this every part of the way. It was through Erin that I found out about the Marcus Autism Center. It's like we met to give each other the missing pieces to each others puzzle. Through God all things are possible!

A gift from the heart.

What a blast!

2009-06-27T13:56:00.005-04:00

For Timmy's birthday last night a group of us got together and headed out of town for some birthday fun. The group included me, Timmy, Jennifer, Greg, Chelsea, and Brandon. We all met up at Joe's steak house. It's a place where they cook your food in front of you and do all the cool tricks. Dinner went really good and the cook kept picking on Timmy after we told him it was his birthday. After dinner was done the guy left and came back with a drum. He played the drum while we sang happy birthday. After that song was over he started another song and told him ok Timmy, it's time to do the chicken dance. It was hilarious! Timmy was a good sport and actually done it. His face was soooo red! After dinner we headed to the movie theater to watch Transformers 2. It was really good. We had a great time with our friends, getting out of town, and a break from the kids. We needed it! Here are some pics from Timmy's big night. Glad you had a great time Timmy!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

2009-06-26T10:22:00.001-04:00

You're the best father and husband that anyone could ever ask for! Happy 25th birthday! We love you!

New obsessions......

2009-06-25T21:25:00.004-04:00

Brayden chose this picture. He told me it was him walking with a tornado. I very quickly explained you hide when a tornado comes. Not my choice of picture, but it's what he wanted.

Brayden goes through spells of just being consumed with things like spiderman or fire. This is where the autism diagnoses kicks in and makes me question it. Though most kids get this way about things from time to time. Right now it's thunderstorms and tornados. Since summer began and he can hear storms coming it freaks him out. We automatically have to turn it to the weather channel to watch the radar and sit near windows(though I try to keep him away) to watch. He's just infatuated with it. It's all he talks about these days. Anytime he sees branches down or bare spots in the yard he instantly tells me there's been a tornado. He goes on to sign(which he made up) tornado and makes this rumbling sound with his throat. Well his daddy got the bright idea to let him watch Twister tonight and I think it was a huge mistake! I'll be watching this movie for the rest of summer. I must say he's sat still and quiet through this whole movie. It's so strange that he's so afraid of the bad weather yet he loves it. It's just another one of those things that makes me wonder.

His other obsession at the moment is a house that caught on fire a few weeks back in our neighborhood. We have to ride by this house and stop so he can look every time we leave to go to town. It drives me nuts! Nothing has changed about this house, but we must go see it every time! If we don't stop so he can really take a close look he gets soooooo mad.

Alec and Parker walked down to get Bray to play at their house. He had a good time. He was gone with the boys for 2 hours. He even took his bike to ride around with Parker. Kenzee and I got to have some girl time. She tickled me when she told me Bray should go play with Parker all the time. I think it's time for a girls day. (:

My Brayden

2009-06-25T11:16:00.004-04:00

Recently I've been asked if I see Brayden as a hindrance or not wanting to deal with him. My answer is NO! Brayden is such a joy and inspiration. He's so smart, funny, outgoing, creative, and loving. He's taught me so much. He's brought me back to appreciating the little things in life that matter most. There's nothing that Brayden can't overcome....if there is an obstacle in his way he will find his own way around it. He's a very head strong little boy. He gets it from his Mama honestly.

I don't want anyone to read the blogs that I've posted on his behavior as everyday is like this. These spells come and go. There are good days and bad. Even during the bad days there are always beams of sunshine. I do get frustrated with him. Who doesn't with their child? I don't see Brayden as bad or terrible. Here lately I've been racking my brain and looking up every resource that I can find to what may be going on with Brayden. I've always said he's really frustrated. With all the labels that have been put on him it makes you think is there really something wrong with my child? I've began to wonder if doctors are just throwing things at him and not getting to the root of the problem. I prayed yesterday long and hard for God to give me the answer. To guide me in the direction I needed to go with Brayden. My answer....Helen Keller. The more I thought about and read and thought back to what we learned in school.....it has been written on the wall for a long time. Brayden is to a point that he gets so excited when he talks that you can't understand everything that he's saying. Then we ask him to go back and sign and he doesn't have all the vocab to tell me in detail what he's saying. It then turns into a huge meltdown and tantrum. Maybe the shutting down that he's been doing is b/c he doesn't want to deal with us anymore? Because he's frustrated that we don't understand. Brayden has a pretty strong sign vocab. I think we need to build on it more. I believe my answer is to go back fully to Total Communication. Because his speech was getting so good we really did relax with his sign. Making it even harder on him now to tell us things. Kids learn different ways...we've tried the strict therapy of no signing and no gestures. Brayden is very visual. His receptive language is really good. His expressive language is getting there. I remember when he was a year old he had more words in sign than his peers that were speaking around him. It just makes sense to me.

As far as the doctors, every time we went to a new one they added a disorder or two or 3. It all led us back every time to the doctors wanting to put him on Risperdal. We tried that for 6 months. When it didn't work they added Methylin with the Risperdal. That really made crazy Brayden. Needless to say Brayden isn't on any medication. Hasn't been for a year now.

I don't resent, regret, or wish things differently of my son. I love him the way he is! I couldn't imagine him any different. He wouldn't be Brayden :).

Hear it?

2009-06-23T23:19:00.002-04:00

Brayden's new thing is saying "hear it". This can mean he's heard a noise and wants to know what it was or telling me that he did hear a sound. Also means did I(Mama) hear it? Today he was spinning the tires on his toy truck and asking me hear it? So we talked about the sound and he was content. This has been going on for the past two days now. Good speech opportunity! While watching Polar Express today he kept telling me all through the movie all the sounds that I guess he's never heard or realized before. That's his favorite movie and he hasn't watched it since getting his 2nd CI. He's also big into telling Kenzee any little thing she does is bad. This is on my nerves for the fact that she starts crying and yelling I'm not bad, Mama tell Brayden I'm not bad! We're working on parts whole and nonsense words in speech therapy right now. He will go tomorrow to work with Tracy for his usual Wens. session. He's starting to pick up a lot of phrases. We're still working on adding is, are, was, and the to his sentences. So we're adding the S.E.E words to his ASL for those. Brayden gets fast with his talking and just jabbers quick things at you. Sometimes if he hasn't signed along with it I don't know what he's said or what he's talking about. So we're also working on slowing down! I'm hoping that in making him slow down when he speaks it will help him to incorporate is, are, the and any other connecting word. Verbs and adjectives are on the list next.

Also in dealing with Brayden's behavior we're going to be heading to Augusta, GA to a clinic that I hope can give us a clear diagnoses to what's going on. I want test run, not just a doctor sitting across from me saying oh he has this and we're going to give him medicine. If any way possible I will be chosing the natural or holistic approach to working with him until I see that it does nothing for him. Again I'm not against medication at all. It's just the last option for me. Please pray for us!

Today was a really great day. Brayden showed his sweet side today. I love his creativity and humor. He's such a great little guy. :)

No more training wheels

2009-06-22T23:30:00.004-04:00

Brayden decided to take his training wheels off today. We went to Parker's house for a bit and he saw him riding without training wheels. When we got home he wanted me to take them off. So as soon as I took them off he jumped on the bike and took off. He didn't want me to hold him up or even touch him. So I back off and let him go. He sat on it walking it down the drive way first. From there he put those feet on those pedals and took off. I couldn't believe it. I went in to get Timmy, my camera, and the video camera! He's getting to be such a big boy now! Where has my baby gone? Way to go son! You can do anything you put your mind to!

A few hours after that a storm blew in. It was pretty rough. It brought down a pecan tree coming into my neighborhood. Several branches in my yard along with some in the neighbors. When the storm was over Timmy, Shari, Brayden, and I went on a trip through town looking at all the damage. It was pretty bad. Trees down everywhere, power lines down. Our power was out for a while. My Nana's neighborhood that's about 10 mins. from me was really torn up. Trees snapped right in half on cars and houses. It was a mess.

T-ball season is over!

2009-06-22T12:02:00.003-04:00

Saturday was his last game! He did a great job. His Nana(nah-nah) was able to come. He was so excited when he seen the table full of trophies. He has carried that trophy around the past 2 days everywhere. He's shown it to everyone about 20 times. I think he has finally put it on his dresser. Mama is glad of that b/c he had me to carry it to the car Sat. evening and I dropped it, but my foot broke it's fall. I stuck it out hoping it would hit it and not the floor and break. It didn't break thank goodness. I have a huge blue bruise on my foot from it though. Oh well, it was worth it to not break his precious trophy.

Saturday afternoon we headed to Douglas to see Nana Pauline and pick blueberries. The kids drove me crazy the whole way there and back. They were pretty good at Nana P's house. We stopped at the cemetery to pay Papa Talmage a visit. We love and miss him so much!

Sunday for Father's Day we stopped by to get my papa and dad a card and Timmy's papa a card. Timmy's father passed away 5 years ago. We let the kids hand them the cards. We had a good day spending time with Timmy and the fathers in our lives.

I'm torn.

2009-06-18T22:19:00.002-04:00

I'm back to the point that I don't know what to do with Brayden. I hurt for him. It's been a hard and rough journey through everything. Brayden is out of control again. This time worse than it's ever been. We've had so many different diagnoses of what may be his issue. ADHD, ODD, Tourette's, Asperger's, and OCD. We've dealt with him every way we've been told. After his 2nd implant surgery in Dec. we started a natural diet that took about a month to work. It did great. It was hard to keep him on it though. I had to watch every little thing he ate. When he went places I had to send food with him. It was very hard. It also doubled our food bill. I don't like the idea of putting him on medicine for whatever is going on, but I'm to the point I have to do what is best for him. Brayden has shut down. Shut everyone out and refuses to work on his speech. The thing that really worries me is that he's extremely smart. I'm afraid he's just going to get farther behind on his speech b/c he refuses to do it. He doesn't need to get any farther behind. He never has caught up. I'm having a hard time with all of this. I'm afraid for his future if we don't get him under control. Poor Kenzee is suffering with all the attention on him and him constantly beating her up and pestering. I'm so stressed out! I mean....what am I to do???? I want my son back, the sweet little boy that I know he is. Just look at that sweet face!

Over the weekend....

2009-06-16T14:37:00.002-04:00

Brayden was pretty good. He was a big help to us. We had a good weekend. So here's what we did.

I decided to spend this weekend declaring war on the fleas that have taken over. Friday I went to the vet to get Lillie and Chloe(yorkie and mini dapple daschund) and my mom's cat Piper some flea meds. I must say I got the dogs a new pill called Comfortis for fleas, I didn't think it would work. I was wrong! The dogs were coated and over night their bed was full of dead fleas! Yay for Comfortis!

Sat. we took a break and went to Shari's cookout/pool party! We had a great time! If you only knew....lol! Scott wound up breaking the diving board. Kenzee nearly drowned...this is pretty typical b/c she likes to take her floaties off and go past the rope. No harm though. Shari saved her. She's just too brave for her own good. Don't get me wrong, it scares me to death! We didn't leave Shari's until around 10 pm. Kenzee left at 7 pm to spend the night with her cousin. Brayden took a shower when we got home and sat down in the rocking chair. He was out of it sitting up! Kenzee prob. didn't make it out of the driveway before she passed out. They were full blast all day!

So Sunday we woke up and headed to the tractor supple store to get some seven dust to cover the yard. First we had to cut the grass short again. Weedeat around the entire house and yard. I went back and raked up all the dead grass and fresh weedeated stuff. That was a huge job! It took 4 hours. I piled all the dead grass up in the middle of the yard to burn. Timmy spread the seven dust. By then we were so tired that we stopped for the day. I walked over to Shari's to put their wheel barrel, rake, and weedeater up. Stopped in to talk to her for a second and wound up helping her write her paper for school.

Monday we had to go to town to buy a clean out plug for the sewage drain since I ran it over with the lawn mower and broke it a week ago. Also had to get some groceries while we were at it. Timmy had gotten up and watered the front yard since you have to wash in the seven dust. We put out a sprinkler for the back yard. Took the kids to vacation bible school. Came back home I dug up that pipe. Leon(Shari's husband) came over to cut it off and put it on. Well Shari and I had to go back to Lowe's to get a coupling. Got that fixed and the rest of the yard watered. It was already time to get the kids. Go pick them up and Kenzee's teacher tells me "Mrs. Courson, Kenzee had an accident". I was like oh no what happened? Kenzee comes up to me and says "I pooped in my panties." Great.... When she gets excited she forgets to go to the bathroom. Ugh... So I get home, eat, and burn that pile of grass finally.

My next task is to vacuum the whole house and clean it while I'm at it. Then spray the flea stuff in the house. I'm taking the day off though! We had a busy weekend! Tomorrow Brayden has an hour of speech at the school. Oh yeah and I cleaned the kids play thing. The neighbor behind me bought it for $50! Whoo-hoo. The kids were ok with it after I told them were are going to build a swingset. We have to wait two weeks before we can treat the house and yard again. Hopefully they will gone and we win!

So far a good day.

2009-06-10T17:59:00.003-04:00

I took him in to meet Tracy today. It's his first time working with her. Cassidy was there, she's a CI user as well. She will be in Bray's class next year. They played a game while we got everything set up with the FM system. Once I thought Bray was ok with everyone I told him I would be back to get him in a bit. He kinda hesitated for a min. then kissed me and told me bye. Kenzee didn't want to leave. She had made friends with Cassidy and informed me she was going to work with Bray and Cassidy. LOL. Coming from the kid that is 3 and talks like she's 20. I do give credit to all the speech therapist that she's been around all the years with Bray. She also can sign up a storm. A lot of the time she will come tell me Brayden wants you to come put such and such up in his closet. Did he tell you that Kenzee? No, he said that (points to closet) Mama. Well how do you know? I talk Brayden. That she does. She speaks and translates. Bless her little heart. Anyways, we picked him up at 2pm and had a great report. He worked on naming body parts and 2 other things. I can't remember at the moment. Tracy said he worked great for her. So maybe he does just need a break. I'm keeping in touch with Shannon once a week and she's giving me things to work on with him. His reward for being good today was swimming in Shari's pool. We swam from 2:30 to 5:30pm. It was a pool full. When Daddy got off he even jumped in. So it was me, Kenzee, Bray, Shari, Grams, and Leon. Bray and Kenzee went down the water slide. Finally for the first time this summer Bray has found his little flippers again. He's swimming like a fish. He actually swam into the deep end to his daddy. That's a big step for him. We're proud!

Did I mention I could pull my hair out?????

2009-06-09T22:07:00.003-04:00

YES, YES, YES, YES......not a good day. Not at all. We had speech therapy with Shannon this afternoon, just like every Tues. and Thurs. at 2:45 pm. We get there and he puts in he's not going to work at all! I drag him into the room and sit down with him. Shannon had this really cool pop-up head ....this is going to be gross...you dig in his nose and ears to pull out things like socks, teeth, sucker....well he wanted to do it his way and only his way. He refused to follow directions. He started throwing down the cards she was placing in front of him. It was a disaster. So Shannon and I start talking and she tells me that Brayden hasn't worked the past 3 visits. She thought he was just having a hard time and I told her no. He's full fledge back in ODD/ADHD mode. So we decide to stop speech therapy for about a month. When I get him back calmed down and willing to work then we'll start back. With the way he's doing at the moment he's just wasting all of our time, money, and gas. When Brayden decides he's not going to do something he flat out doesn't do it. Talk about an angry Mama. Angry of course with Mr. Brayden. Sometimes I just don't know what to do with this kid. It's hard. He will still have speech therapy with Tracy for extended school year services. So it didn't really worry me a whole lot that we were breaking from Shannon for a bit. This will be on Wends. at 1 pm for 1 hour. He's getting dropped off at the school. We'll see how he likes that. Lots of prayers please! We need them right now.

We did meet with a lady whose father works with Timmy. They are going through testing to find out if their son has hearing loss. I gave her a good bit of info. and maybe the end of this week we'll have dinner with her and her family so they can all meet Brayden. I'm willing to help anyone at anytime going through finding out about hearing loss. It's a rough road and everyone needs someone to be there for them to talk.

I'm about to pull my hair out! AGGHH!

2009-06-09T13:01:00.002-04:00

Brayden is driving me up the wall! He won't go outside and play. He won't be quiet. If he was talking I would be fine with the loudness. No we're hollering and making weird noises and just be LOUD! I so wish that we could afford to keep Bray on the organic natural diet. His ADHD was so much better controlled. Our grocery bill doubled when we had him on the diet. It was great though. He was quiet, not hyper, listened well, and could concentrate. These days we're having to go back and make him wear the right ear only(new ear implanted) b/c Savannah never made us do this. Nemours is wanting us to do this to strengthen his right ear to equal the left. It's been hard. He's been loud, I guess learning his limits? He doesn't want to listen and you really don't know what he's understanding in that ear. Not including Brayden can turn you off in a second. He's so good at it you don't know if he's turned you off or never heard you. Ughhh.....it's so frustrating. Since school has been out he hasn't wanted to work on speech at all. I've tried to make it fun and I've tried to make him sit at the table. Shannon has even had trouble with him off and on. He does do better for her though. Brayden has always been really clingy with us and us very over protective with him. So he never wants to leave our side. It's like never getting a break. Not even him going out to play, b/c he won't go without us out there. When Kenzee is home he'll go out with her, but he just beats her up the whole time so I wind up out there anyways b/c of the screaming. Sorry...I just needed to vent. I need a break away from the house, the kids....ughhh. Mini-vacation anyone? It's so frustrating when you're putting your all into Brayden and he's just not even intrested and not making the vast improvements that he needs to.

The diet= no artificial colors, flavors, preservatives, or high fructose corn syrup
He takes omega 3 fish oil(Dr. Sears), multivitamins(Dr. Sears), and probiotics(Culturelle).
Mostly organic or pure foods.

From Jan. to May he was on this diet. Let me tell you, it worked better than any meds they had him on and with no side effects. He was a different kid. It's just very expensive to do. His teachers, family, and friends all commented on how great he was behaving.

We may be taking another hard hit to the wallet again. It's hard to deal with a kid that is deaf, has ADHD and ODD.

Tuh-tal!

2009-06-08T21:41:00.002-04:00

We were coming home from town and right as we turned onto our road I spotted a turtle. Timmy pulled over and picked it up. Bray got really excited jumping in his car seat and hollering oh yah tuh-tal! We told him he could put it in the backyard for a while and then he had to go back to the pond. The turtle stayed in the yard long enough for the dogs to bark and act all bad. The last time Bray went out to check on him he had already left. We searched until dark for this turtle. Bray was concerned since he wasn't taken to the pond. On our search we did find some really cool big black fuzzy caterpillars. He had to put them in his bug jar. We never did find the turtle. Who knows where he went. It was so cute to see Bray walking around the yard with his hands cupped around his mouth calling out "Tuh-tal, tuh-tal"! We called Mr. B our neighbor to make sure it was ok if we searched his yard as well. He actually came out and helped us look. Another high point, he's actually starting to understand Brayden. Usually he'll call me over and ask me what Brayden said. :D He's getting there.

Happy Anniversary Timmy!

2009-06-07T13:52:00.002-04:00

Today marks our 6 year wedding anniversary. I love you Timmy. It's been a tough 6 years, but it's been the best 6 years! I wouldn't change it for the world. I'm looking forward to many, many more years ahead.

We had all the odds against us. We got married at 16(me) and 18(Timmy). We got pregnant with Brayden only two months after we got married. Yes, he was planned. I was 17 when Brayden was born. To throw another curve ball he was a sick little guy that was deaf. We also had just bought our first home. I couldn't even sign the loan b/c I wasn't 18 yet. Bray was 16 months old when we got pregnant with Mackenzee, also a planned pregnancy. Everyone thought it was too soon with all we were dealing with towards Bray. I look back at all this now and think boy we were two crazy kids! We made it so hard on ourselves. It's something we look back on and laugh at now. We take it a day at a time, but we're making it!

Once again....

2009-06-06T20:14:00.002-04:00

Brayden has broken his cochlear(controller). This time he cracked the screen right down the middle. I'm sure the hear always team loves getting so many frequent calls from us. He always finds a new way to break his "ear". I'm sure Cochlear Americas gets a lot of research from Brayden's broken processors. It's rare that it's broken the same way twice. Good thing we buy the insurance.

More nasty weather

2009-06-05T21:34:00.003-04:00

It's suppose to rain for the next week. I'm so tired of the rain and bad weather. Most of the fronts involve severe or significant weather alerts. I called Shari for something this afternoon and she says I'm in the front yard taking pics of the clouds. So I walk out to the end of my driveway and Brayden follows me holding blue(his blankie) b/c he was scared. Well as we get to the end of the driveway the wind starts blowing really hard. I mowed the grass today so there was piles of clippings at the end of the driveway from where I blowed them off with the blower. So as the wind is picking up it makes a little dust devil out of the grass. OMG, Brayden freaked out and runs down the driveway screaming and crying back into the garage. I go after him to see what was wrong. I got to him and he was shaking and crying. I asked him what's wrong and he said tornado and thunder and lightening, and rain. I've never seen the kid run so fast! Bless his heart. He hates bad weather worse than I do. We came inside and again I had to turn it to the weather channel so he could see what was on the radar. The power flicked on and off a time or two. Buddy he sat down on the couch beside me and didn't move. It must have really scared him bad.

Before the storm came this morning I did get to mow the grass. Finally, the yard was thick and getting high again. I'm sure my older neighbors love us. We hardly have time to cut the grass with us coming and going so much. I washed and dried some clothes, cleaned the kitchen, swept off and arranged the front porch, and cooked dinner. Felt good to put a dent in a long list of things to get done around here. My house stays a constant mess. With a husband and two kids nothing stays where you put it and everything gets dirty. Oh well, that's just life. We're suppose to have a t-ball game in the morning if it doesn't rain. We'll see what happens.

2009-06-04T20:57:00.002-04:00

Brayden choked on one of these little bad boys today at the neighbors house. Shari gave him one and I didn't know it. Next thing I know he's swallowing hard and his eyes are watering. I'm like he must be choking on flem b/c he has bad allergies. Then he started gagging and I was omg what in the world? Shari jumps up and starts beating him on the back. After the third hit the cream saver come flying out of his mouth along with throw up. Poor little guy. I said when did he get that and where? She told me she had given it to him. I was like no more hard candy please! It scared me to death. It scared him too. That wasn't the end of the fun today. We had speech therapy and it started pouring. Well I decided to go on to the next town for the therapy anyways. Bad idea. It was raining so hard that everything was white and I couldn't see. I dropped down to 35 mph and prayed that I'd make it there. We almost hydroplaned twice. In the matter of about 30 mins. 1 inch of rain fell. We sat at the office until the rain stopped before we headed home. While sitting there I pulled up the weather channel on my phone and saw we were under a significant weather alert. Wish I had known that before I got on the road! Brayden was freaking out. He hates bad weather as well. Not fun trying to drive in the pouring down rain at 35 and slower with a kid screaming thunder, oh no! Mama, Mama, Mama. I was just glad we made it there safely. Hopefully tomorrow won't be so eventful. Shannon his speech therapist commented on how well Brayden is understanding since getting the new maps. She said he was working on his puzzle while she was asking questions and he never looked up to read her lips/face. Way to go Bray!

What a great and fun weekend!

2009-06-01T22:22:00.002-04:00

Sat. we had a t-ball game at 12pm. Brayden woke up in a bad mood and I just knew he was not going to play again. Daddy(Timmy) was able to get off long enough to watch his t-ball game and Nana and Papa came. Bray surprised us all by getting right on out there with the team. He stretched, prayed, and did the little huddle. He actually batted first. I was so shocked! He didn't beg for one of us to go on the field with him. He didn't show out. It was great and I was soooo proud of him! Timmy and I were actually able to sit down and enjoy the game. Kenzee made a lot of friends. She had a good time talking girl stuff and playing with a puppy. So then Sunday comes. We got up early and headed to the beach! Whooo-hooo! Kenzee kept asking are we at the beach yet? We get there, get everyone lotioned up and in the water. Brayden found a little crab and kept it in a bucket mose of the stay. He let him go when we started to leave, poor crab. Mama got to relax and soak up the sun. Much needed! It's nice that the kids are older and keep themselves entertained and not running wild or trying to go too far into the water. We brought a football that floats so the boys were entertained for atleast an hour. We all had a blast. Infact Kenzee said she was staying. We ate dinner and headed home. It was nice to get out of town and not for an appt. Just to have family time and a whole lot of fun! Now it's back to work for Daddy and another busy week for Mama and the kids.

Cool cool piyat(pirate)!

2009-05-28T23:49:00.003-04:00

How could I have forgotten Brayden's pirate ship? Whoops on Mama. He loves pirates and anything to do with them. As we were headed home from Nemours, Brayden spotted a pirate ship docked at The Jacksonville Landing. We were on the blue bridge at the time and had to find our way off and over to that dock so he could check it out. Here's a pic of it. He was upset to see it wasn't on the blog. Is this a family blog or Brayden blog? HAHA!

Speech, tball, and a weekend full of fun.

2009-05-28T23:17:00.004-04:00

YAY! The new maps that were put in his CI these last visits are paying off. He's doing great with his sounds he was having problems with /f/, /k/, /d/, and a few others. He actually corrected himself from saying "tow" to "cow" for a cow puzzle. Shannon his speech therapist also commented on how well he's listening and trying harder to make those sounds better. Today and yesterday have been good days. Brayden has calmed down and slacked up on pestering Kenzee. I think she's about had her fill of it. She asked to go play with her cousin Bailee at her Aunt's today. When I went to pick her up she begged to spend the night. So I'm giving her a night away. Daddy got to go to his first tball practice with Bray. Of course since Daddy was there he wanted to stick to him like glue. It was so funny to watch Timmy run the bases with Bray. After a little bit Bray warmed up and started getting the ball and throwing them in. He did run the bases alone the last time. We'll have pictures and a game Saturday. Thank goodness it's going to be a 12pm game. Mama and Brayden don't like those 9am games. Sheeshh...who wants to wake up and play baseball? Parker is finally moving in this weekend. Parker and his brother Alec and sister Lanie came down this afternoon to play with Bray. I walked them home when it was time for them to go and talked with their mom Shawna and before I knew it it was 10pm.

Boy what a day!

2009-05-26T18:24:00.001-04:00

We had an appt. today with Nemours audiology dept. to have his left ear mapped and with their surgeon Dr. Horlbeck for a second opinion on his right ear. He did fine through mapping his left ear, but when it came to the doctor not so much. Boy did he let his true colors shine through today. He was LOUD, didn't want to mind, and all over the place! Dr. Horlbeck basically said the same thing that our surgeon Dr. Goldsmith said. And that is the implant is thicker than the left, that's why it sticks up so much more. It's pretty common for the wire to poke out like that. The soreness needs to be watched til he's had it for a year. If he's still complaining then it'll need to have another check up. Then Dr. H had to go get his other doctor friend to look at the knots in Bray's neck. They gave him a round of antibiotics and we'll be back in 3 weeks. They said they could be scared from the surgery and stay that size, but b/c they're not 1cm or bigger they will just watch them. Makes me feel a ton better! Also that if he was to be hit in the right side and that wire pokes on through to do what I was told....put neosporine on it and call Dr. Goldsmith. I can sleep better now . This is a picture of Brayden and Dr. Goldsmith the day before Bray's right cochlear implant surgery. Bray is Dr. Goldsmith's first bilateral kid.

One sick little girl and one mean little boy

2009-05-23T20:41:00.000-04:00

I wake up this morning to Kenzee rubbing my arm and sticking her little toes that were fire hot on me. She kissed me on the lips and I knew right then she had a fever. I got up and took her temp. it was 101.4. She layed around in the chair all afternoon until the convenient care clinic opened up. I could tell her throat was swollen and red. When we got there they tested her for strep throat and a urinalysis b/c she had been complaining when she pee pees. Well step came back negative, doc thinks maybe just allergies causing the red swelling. The urinalysis came back positive. She has a UTI. Poor baby. We were given antibiotics and sent on our way. She's still running a temp. Bray has been a handful today. Actually for the past week or more. He's done everything in his power to annoy both Kenzee and I. I'm so ready for it to stop raining so I can send his little hyper butt out to run off some energy. Thank goodness Daddy is on his days off now! It's his turn to deal with Bray...I'll take a sick Kenzee any day! He has worn me out this week.

Last day of preschool: bitter-sweet

2009-05-22T22:49:00.000-04:00

Time flies! For the last time today I picked Bray up from his pre-k class with all his buddies hollering we'll miss you and all the teachers telling him to have a good summer and bye Brayden or Braylynn for some of them who never got his name just right! HAHA! Oh well...Bray is very well known by all the school. He's a bit of a rebel....with the mohawked hair and all. I wasn't expecting to walk into his classroom and find Parker(his bestbuddy in the whole entire world) with a shaved head sporting a fresh mohawk. I just laughed and said to his teacher "I see Bray has rubbed off on him". Parker looks up at me with a huge smile and says I got my hair cut just like Brayden. A mohawk! :) Brayden's fun with Parker won't be over though. His parents are buying a house down the street and we're excited for both of the boys. I don't think Brayden was ready to leave his school. His new school is just across the railroad tracks from our house. He told me as we passed the new school, no school...old school yeah! After we explained he had to go to the school he made a bargan with his dad. Bray: Daddy you walk with me school? Meaning he wants Timmy to walk him into the new school. Timmy told him yes and he seemed ok....for the moment. Our summer will be full with extended school year services of speech therapy, private speech therapy, and tball. His tball game tomorrow has been cancelled due to the monsoon we've been living in for the past two weeks. Anywho, we'll miss the great teachers that have worked with Brayden this year. He's made great progress this year. Thanks teachers! We couldn't have done it without you!

Benjamin, Brayden, and Parker. The 3 amigos!