Katie is more balanced

May 22nd, 2013, Katie is now at the end of her Journey that started back in April 2011.

In April 2011 she really starting asking/begging her dad and I to have her little ear to be made into the same size of her other ear.  She had it pierce twice and it ripped both times.

Having only one ear pierce was affecting her

self esteem.

Dave and I had long talks with her,

explaining the benefits of waiting until older.

How technology continues to improve.

The plastic surgeon (He is awesome as I have mentioned many times before)

also explained the options and pro/cons to them

She was aware it may not work

and even though she  doesn't understand the long term affects.

She was determine to have the surgery

and was an amazing trooper with all 5 surgeries.

She grew up a lot during them,

she became responsible of her own meds

yes, she knew how much and how often she could take the antibodics, and pain meds including narcotics.  Very rarely did I have to remind her.  And it was awesome she was able to swallow pills, so after the first surgery with the liquids stuff, she was heavy enough to take the pills and she was a happy camper.

She knew when treatments needed to be done and would come to me when she needed them.

She was one of the best patients I ever had.

Katie getting fitted with her new Sophono.

I have a video that I have tried to upload onto the blog 3 times and it keeps disappearing.  The smile on her face was priceless when the audiologist started to talk to her.  She even stated it was to loud

 

This is what it looks like.  The top flat thing is the magnet that attached to the skull and to the Sophono.  There is different strengths of the magnet.  They started out on number 3 of 7 for Katie.  After having it on a little bit, she complained that her head hurt, she moved down to a 2.  It is a little looser but doesn't hurt as much.  They are going to send her the number 1.  It is going to take her a little bit of time to get use to the magnet and she can gradually move up on strength.

The second part is the actual sophono.  Katie was lucky and got the new version that was released this year.  It has different volumes and programs on it.

 

I was surprise on how much it would stick out.  Katie enjoys having it and hearing more.  We tried putting a wide headband on for her to wear at gymnastics.  Katie played with the headband to much and had to take it off.

As she is adjusting to it, she can't wear it for long period of times due to it irritating and hurting where the magnet is.  Praying that it will become more used to it.  Katie is responding much better too and seems to be processing things a lot better.  I had written in previous blog when she had the temp. about all the things she didn't hear and so forth.  She also didn't get a frustrated with things when she had the temp sophono.

They did an hearing test on her.  She still heard below "normal" hearing in that ear, but not much.   Even knowing that, she is very happy that she is hearing out of that ear. 
I am grateful the insurance company agreed to pay for this and that we can see benefits from it already.  Praise the Lord.