Kat Reading

Kat Reading

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Day 2

When we put Miss Kat's processor first thing in the morning, she cried again. She told us it was too loud. She got over it in just a minute again. I hope that doesn't last forever.

In the afternoon we headed to the craft store to get some "bling" for Miss Kat's Dri and Store. We fancied it up by writing her name in jewels and put little crystal hearts all over it. It is insanely gaudy now, any 5 year old would love it!!!

While we were at the store we continued to work on listening with Miss Kat. We found tons of bells and tinkling toys for her to listen to. By the end of our trip Miss Kat was starting to respond to her name again. Thank God! Just the one day she wasn't able to was horrible. We had to go back to clapping to have her turn to look at us. I had forgotten how annoying that was.

We started having some technical issues in the afternoon. Miss Kat's processor has a green LED light that blinks when it is connected and sending sound to the implant well. Starting in the afternoon we would occasionally blink red. That meant that it wasn't connecting to the internal device. I tried to call our audiologist, but it was Saturday. I even tried to call Advanced Bionics, but they were closed too. I called another parent with 2 kids with AB implants and posted my question on CiCircle. We tried changing out the headpiece, and that didn't stop it. I finally figured out that it was because her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and it was too thick. When we moved the hair out of the way, it stopped. Later we started having some trouble with the new headpiece. It would be in place and then just suddenly go completely red. We would have to take the battery off and "reboot" the system. It happened several times. I hope this is a faulty headpiece, and not normal. I would hate to have to do that over and over everyday.

In the evening Miss Kat found a buzzer from the game Taboo. She loved buzzing it. She would go in the other room and make us all listen for the buzzing and then raise our hands when we heard it. (Ummm, perhaps she has done this before...)Then later on she watched the movie Fantasia. She was entranced. She loved the music. It was amazing to watch her green light blink right along with the music.

Besides recognizing her name we also have seen Miss Kat understand and respond to the words "where", "movie", "milk", and "more". Not too shabby for two day old ears!

2 comments:

Cyborg Queen said...

Awesome! :-)
It is normal for when the first time it's on in the morning, it gets quite loud, even though it "sounded" quiet the day before. What I found helped is putting the volume all the way down and the quietest program on the night before. Then when I wake up and turn it on. It's not as loud, then after about 20 minutes or so, I can put the program back to normal. I absolutely hated that after I was activated...now, it's not so bad. :-) I'm looking forward to hear more stories!

leah said...

Wow- it sounds like she is moving along quite quickly! I love the description of her playing with the musical toys and hearing the ice clinking in her drink. Here's to many more new sounds!