August 31, 2008

Kinnick still has her cold.  It hasn't gotten any worse, but it's still hanging in there.  She finished the last of her antibiotic.  I'm hoping it doesn't get worse, now.  She's still getting breathing treatments every 4 hours plus her usual breathing treatments.  She doesn't seem to mind the breathing treatments - she even tries to help.

We are trying to teach Kinnick to take steps.  We put a short box (couple inches tall) in front of her and let her step up.  She's finally catching on.  She tries to climb up us, now.  You can tell that she doesn't have a lot of trunk strength, but she's trying hard.

Carver and Kinnick both have 3 teeth.  They both have 2 on bottom and 1 on top.  Carver is still pretty cranky.  I think he still trying to get his 4th tooth.  Kinnick's 4th tooth looks like it could come in any day, but it doesn't seem to bother her.  She has a high tolerance for pain.  I think it's because of all of the pain she has gone through.

Carver is still eating good for us - when he leaves his hands out of his mouth.  He is very self focussed.  His teeth are bothering him and that is all he can think about.  I think it's because he can't see or hear.  Anything that is going on with his body seems to really keep him preoccupied.   He even throws a fit when he poops.  It's crazy.

I got a denial from the insurance company for the cochlear implants.  So, this has slowed things down.  I guess this is pretty typical.  They want multiple pieces of support to show that he is deaf.  I thought the ENT sent the info, but apparently not enough info.  They're sending more next week.  What a frustrating process.  In the mean time, Carver falls further and further behind.  Since this has pushed us out at least another month, I went ahead and tried Carver on 1/16 lt of oxygen during the day.  He's doing great.  If he continues to do well, I'm going to change him to 1/16 lt at night.  I'll wait 2 weeks.  When we were in MI, the nurses took Carver completely off oxygen sometime in the early hours of the morning.  He was satting 100 when I got there.  I was a little surprised since there was not an order to reduce the O2.  The order showed that he was on home continuous O2.  However, it was nice to see him doing so well without his oxygen.  I still have problems at night where he quits breathing for a few seconds at a time.  Some nights are worse then others.  I know the oxygen won't make a difference, but it scares me to ever quit using the monitor.  Luckly, we now own the monitors.  After so many months of rental, the insurance company buys the monitors.

I think Carver has been attempting to see things the last few days.  If he's laying on his stomach and I pick him up, he turns his head and looks as if he's trying to see who picked him up.  I've even caught him peaking at the lights during his vision therapy.  He doesn't look long, but he does take a quick peak.

That's it for now.  Hope you all have a good holiday!