brief news bits..

Just a little quickie here:

Ella's been sick for the past week or so with bronchitis. However, she's finishing up a course of antibiotics, and it is clearing out now.

Ella also seems to be working on a speech approximation for "bye bye", although at this point it is little more than "buh buh". On the plus side, she's continuing with the use of ma ma, da da, and og (frog). She also frequently uses a spoken "I" mixed into her signs, and very rarely she says "Hi". All of this is really good news, as it means her spoken vocabulary is growing. In the past we've seen patterns where a new sound replaces an old one.

Ella has also taken to a lot of play activities that are good for balance and strength. Lots of jumping, bouncing, crab walking, etc. She's even starting to work on a broad jump, not just a vertical hop (I think this is her teachers in action, but I have not directly asked them).

Tech-speak device and speech news.

Again, I'm a bit behind in updating the blog, but the holidays always make life a bit busy. So, with that asside, here's a quick update of what's been going on.

First, Ella's school has sent home a Tech/Speak device. This is essentially a board of buttons with pictures on them, and when Ella pushes the buttons, it speaks words. The hope is that it will make her realize that spoken-word can help her communicate with more people, thus encourage her to work on transitioning from signing to speaking.

As for speech, Ella's had a few new words/word aproximations emerge over the holiday. In addition to "da da" and "og" (frog), she's now using "ma ma" (which she had a long time ago, but disappeared for a year), and "ah ah ooh" (uh-oh). What seems most positive to me is she very quickly started using these words appropriately, because she already has the concepts of how to use language down from her signing. This makes me very hopeful that once we can break through the physical co-ordination of her mouth, she'll fall rapidly into speaking.

In any event, we all had a great Thanksgiving, and I hope you all did too.

Ella's follow-up appointment.

This is a bit of old news now, but I'm just now getting around to blogging it. Back on Nov 5th, Ella had her post-op follow-up at Hopkins. They performed a fairly detailed check-up of her heart, and the placement of the device using both echo- and electro-cardiograms. The Amplatzer duct occluder is in-place, it's not moving, and it's not obstructing normal blood flow anywhere. To quote the cardiologist that did the procedure "It's hers now, she can keep it."

At this point, we've been given some very minor restrictions (i.e.: no dental work for 4-5 months due to infection risks.) and we're scheduled to follow-up with our local cardiologist in a year.

In general Ella has been doing really well. The day after the procedure (Thursday) she was still pretty sleepy, but she went back to school the day after that (Friday), and had a more-or-less normal day. She had some minor tenderness for a bit over a week at her hip where they inserted the catheters, but this went really well.

All is well.

Just to let everyone know, Ella is home and doing very well. She's got a good appetite, when we got home last night she immediately spotted a bowl of goldfish crackers, walked over and stuffed a handful in her mouth. She's been sleeping a lot, but when she's up and about she is acting like her usual happy self. She doesn't seem to be in any serious pain, but was a bit fussy about me changing her bandages this morning. Even that was a fairly mild protest; she was whining about it, not crying or screaming.

At this point, I expect she'll be OK to go to school on Friday, although you never know for sure.

Ok so we are going home

Things went well and the doctor has decided not to keep ella overnight


-- Posted from my iPhone

Proceedure done

The proceedure is done and went very well. Still not positive she will stay overnight, but it is likely.


-- Posted from my iPhone

They are using the amplatzer

They have decided to use an amplatzer, which is the larger device and Ella will likely be staying overnight


-- Posted from my iPhone