Friday, October 30, 2009

Friday in NYC

Today we packed up and headed into the city for our last two appointments this week. It was a beautiful day, so that was nice. We are certainly getting our exercise with all this walking.

Maria's 1st appointment was at 1 with the speech pathologist. She talked with us and got acquainted with Maria. Maria signed for a drink, even when the drink was not present, so that was an encouragement. She also copied the speech pathologist and knocked on the door that was in the book. She also got excited by some very fun handstamps. She wanted to remind us that even after the implants are turned on that it could take 6 months for Maria to speak.

Maria's 2nd appointment at 2:30 was with the audiologist again. She ran the tests with Maria's hearing aids on. Again Maria only responded to very loud sounds. She definitely responded though because she became very agitated and started biting herself. She also vocalized a lot, but then stopped when the loud noise came on. It was so loud that I jumped at one point and Maria didn't even seem to notice. Overall it left us at the same point as we were on Wednesday. She is definitely hearing very loud noises, but we are not sure how much she will hear with the implants. We'll find out more next Friday.

Also, we are looking at possible surgery on the day before Thanksgiving. That's not sounding like a lot of fun, as it would have been Maria's first Thanksgiving with lots of family. Also, the city will be a zoo due to the Thanksgiving day parade. It is also likely that we'll be there during the parade, but not be able to line up to see it. We're also not sure how much rest, etc. Maria needs after surgery. Please pray that if this is the day she is supposed to have surgery that all works out with presurgical testing in our area as well as with the massive amounts of traffic that will be in NJ and the city at this time. After surgery we will have to travel again 4weeks later, then 1 week later, then 3 weeks later, then 4 weeks later, then 6 weeks later, and then every 3 months. We'll be pros in the city by then!

After Maria's appointments we had to go to Gary's store in the city to pick up a laptop. Again we continued to walk to look for a cab. During the walk we ran into Dora on the street. Maria noticed her right away and started laughing. She was so excited. Then after her picture she kept trying to climb over me to get back to Dora. I put her down to see where she would go and she ran back to Dora and gave her a big hug. She also tried to take her head off:)

We caught a cab. I was able to see the Steuben store in NYC. It's very nice. Gary picked up the laptop. Then we went to an italien place for a very late lunch. We walked again to the bus station and then made it back to the hotel to pick up our car. We left NJ at 5:30. On the way home Maria started signing ice cream at the gas station when she saw the ice cream in the freezer. When we got back in the car she started screaming. It was so neat to once again see her sign on her own volition without us modeling for her first. We stopped at Krispy Kreme to take donuts home to Macella and Kirstie, so donut holes made Maria feel a lot better, even though she didn't get ice cream:)

We were able to see Macella and Kirstie at 10:30 when we got home. We missed them.


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