Update and question

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone. I just wanted to give everyone a little update on how

things are going for Annika and then also was going to post my

ongoing question.

Annika continues to give us more information every single day. She

now has about 10 receptive words in her vocabulary and then about 6

expressive words. The lastest word that she has said is her own

name. Whenever you call Annika, you will hear her say An--na. It is

soooo precious.

And Saturday we had a family wedding to go to and you should have

seen this little girl dance at the wedding dance. She was the hit of

the party!!!!!!!! I just cried because this was never something I

ever dreamed of her doing with her hearing aids. She just didn't get

enough information.

But now she has become more aware of her BWP on her sides. Mainly

this is because we have our on going controversy of what to use to

place both of her BWP on her. Dad likes to use a belt and the small

packs that came within her CI kit and Mom prefers to have them in her

undershirt pockets. Since Dad has won the argument for now she has

started to take her whole setup apart. She will take the processor

out of the pocket and disconnect the cable and pull the headpiece

off. I found her up from her nap playing with the processor and she

must have gotten the button cover off of the processor and adjusted

the buttons. Well needless to say she must have blown herself out

because both the sensitivity and volume were cranked at full

capacity. She doesn't like it when we take the BWP and headpiece off

so I have been laying her down with them on. Well, today she must

have been bored with her nap and decided to make it more

interesting. Unfortunately this little incident cut her nap in at

least half. So I will have a little crabby child.

So my question goes with this dilemma. Anyone else have suggestions

on what to use to put her processors in or on that would enable us to

put them on her hips? She can't carry them in a dual back on her

back because she already has balance issues and needs to have the

weight divided equally. I am still not ready to move to the BTE

because I like the durability of the processors for her right now.

Once she is used to all the equipment we will really look at this

because of the balance issues but right now I don't want to try

this. We have tried the pockets on the undershirts and doesn't

like this because we can't get at the processors as easily and taking

them apart at night is more involved. I don't like the belt loop

because she has more access to them and they sometimes get knocked

off of the belt and then the headpiece can get pulled off her head

(which can be painful since we use wig tape to hold the headpiece in

place). I have tried to rig up the harnesses that AB has and but

right now they are too big for her to place on her side. Any

suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Mom of 4

Marcus 13

12

Jon 10

Annika 2

Bilateral Clarion implant 3/1/04

Hookup 3/25/04