Monday, August 24, 2009

Goooooooooooo DAWGS!!

Well it has been a while since I have blogged. Things have been busy, busy, busy around the Duvall house. Our gargen is putting out TONS of veggies. We are staying really busy picking, shelling, and freezing all the goodies. Peyton is still doing really well with his sounds. We practice ALL the time! He loves to sing and this week we are singing "Open, Shut Them" and as soon as I start singing he makes a fist. He has had some really good hearing days, but yesterday was not one of them! He was extremely ill yesterday and that may have been part of it! He is also cuttingh is 1 year molars and that has not been fun for anyone involved. I was threatening to sell him yesterday, but if the truth be told, whoever bought him would have to take me too! :)

We did have a fun weekend! We took Peyton to get his picture made with Uga at Picture Day. Poor Daddy got up at 3:30 am to get a ticket, but it was well worth it. I will have to post the picture (when I figure out how to do that!). He LOVED that and the picture was SO cute. It was a really neat experience. It is probably something we will do every year from now on.

Well tomorrow is therapy! Daddy has a meeting so Ms. Pauline is going with me. Yes, she is the babysitter that does EVERYTHING!! I will let everyone know how it goes!! Have a great week!

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Weekend.......WHERE ARE YOU?

Ok...am I wishing my life away. I am SO ready for the weekend already. Work has been good this week, but I think I am just still exhausted from the lock-in this past weekend. Anyway, Monday was a not so good day for home therapy. Peyton did work on his sounds for Daddy for a little while on Monday, but by the time I got home and sat down with him he would have NO part of it. That is so frustrating!!! He did work for a little while though and I guess that's better than nothing. I loves playing with his bus so we really worked on the bu,bu,bu sound.

Well yesterday was therapy. I was extremely nervous all day because we were going to get the results of his baseline evaluation. Even though I know Peyton is behind, it is still hard to hear. Before I tell you the results, let me just sing Ms. Candace's praises. Ms. Candance is our AVT therapist and it like family now (She should be! We spend more time with her now than we do our family!). She is ABSOLUTELY amazing! Robby and I know without a doubt that God placed her in our lives because she is exactly what we need, not to mention exactly what Peyton needs. I know personally how hard it is to go over test results with parents, especially when there is a delay. She did a wonderful job, without "sugar coating" anything! Thank you for all that you do Candace!! OK...now on to the test results! My baby is one smart cookie!! He scored high is the areas of Physical, Adaptive Behavior, and Social-Emotional Development. He scores were in the low average range for Cognitive Development and below average in the area of Communication. The Cognitive and Communication was not a surprise to us. Spoken language effects both of those areas tremendously! So basically, this evaluation told us that there isn't a global deficit. Peyton is just behind because of his hearing impairment!! Talking about relieved. I thought my baby was smart but to hear it from a professional is a whole different story!! Candance did break down his communication deficit and basically Peyton is about 10 months behind in both receptive and expressive language. This is definately a gap that we want to close! So right now we are going to continue therapy and revisit the language scales in about 3 months. At this point, if we don't see a lot of progress and by "a lot" we mean more than 3 months progress (because our goal is to close the gap) then at that time we will start the process of evaluating him for hearing aids (which is the next step in this process)! Although that is something that both Robby and I wish that Peyton did not have to go through, we want what is best for him and trust Candace and Dr. Todd totally! We are very appreciative of all the prayers and just ask that everyone keep them coming!!

Because of the evaluation results we didn't get to do a lot of therapy, but we did get 3 new Learning to Listen sounds: cow (mooo), truck (nu nu nu nu), and bird (whistle). We are also working on the function word "push". So the work continues!

Today is Wednesday so we won't get to see a whole lot of Daddy because he gets home after we are already in bed. He also just called and said that Peyton is running a fever. It's low grade so I think it's probably just teeth. That means he will probably not be in the best of spirits today. It's a good thing he is with Gran Gran and stay at home. Happy Hump Day everyone!!

Monday, August 17, 2009

Home again, home again!

Well my baby boy is FINALLY home! He had a wonderful weekend at MiMi and Poppy's but I missed him like CRAZY!! My mom said he had a really good hearing day on Saturday. It is so weird to me how his hearing comes and goes. She said he responded to just about everything! She was really impressed and took advantage of it and worked really hard on his Learn to Listen sounds! She said by the end of the day when she pulled out the therapy toys he would just put his head down. But he always participated. He is such a trooper.

Peyton left on Thursday toddling around and came back yesterday running. WOW!! He will fall down and just stand up right in the middle of the floor. I am so proud. Now I know our work is cut out for us. I chased him everywhere last night. He loves to be chased. He will run and just laugh and laugh! He is so much fun. I have thoroughly enjoyed every stage he has went through. I just can't wait for him to talk. I just want to hear him say "Mama" so bad. I am confident that it will come. I know it is not going to come as easy as it will with others but I am sure that it will come one day. We are working WAY to hard for it not to!

Well Peyton had a wonderful weekend and so did Robby and I. We had the lock-in on Friday night and had a blast. We had a good turn out and all the kids had such a good time. We did sleep to about lunch on Saturday and then hit the garden. We picked and shelled butter beans for the majority of the afternoon. Then we decided that we needed some time together so we went on a date. We went to eat at the Olive Garden and then went shopping for Peyton some Fall and Winter clothes. We really had a good time together. Then of course, yesterday was church and then I went to pick up Peyt!

Well it's a new week with tons to do! I hope and pray it will be a productive week for me, as well as, for my sweet little man!!

Friday, August 14, 2009

Strange Feeling

It is really a strange feeling to be home and Peyton not be here. I don't like it at all! Peyton left for Blackshear today to spend the weekend with MiMi and Poppy! I sure will miss him. I know what you are thinking...a nice romantic weekend with my husband. Well my romantic weekend plans are a youth lock-in tomorrow night, putting up vegetables all day Saturday, and crashing from exhaustion Saturday night!!

Well onto Peyton...Ms. Pauline said he worked on his sounds a lot today. By the end of the day he would look for her cat when she made the "meow" sound. He also alerted to and localized to her clapping her hands when he was doing something he was not supposed to! Everyday is something new. I am so proud of him!!!

Peyton is also walking everywhere! Crawling is a thing of the past. His little legs are so short. He is sooo cute walking around.

I am really going to miss him this weekend but I know he is going to have a blast. He will probably ride the golf cart with Poppy the majority of the time! What did I ever do before him??

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Busy Wednesday!!

Well today was a very busy day! I had to work, of course. Peyton stayed with Gran Gran and Grandpapa like always on Wednesdays. Gran Gran worked with Peyton a lot today on his sounds! She is wonderful and helps me out a lot!

After work, I came home and got him and headed to Athens. I had dinner plans with several of our youth girls from church so Peyton stayed with Ms. Pauline. For those of you that don't know Ms. Pauline, she is the incredible lady that keeps Peyton on Tuesdays and Thursdays! She also worked on his sounds with him! I don't know what we would do without all the extra help with Peyton's therapy. There just aren't enough hours in the day!

On the way home from Athens we passed a man riding a horse and stopped and made it a "listening" moment and practiced our sound for horse! After we got home, we worked on some sound conditioning but Peyton was so tired that he was not very interested! I figured it was bath time but that does not mean therapy is over for the day! We even practice his sounds in the tub. After his tubby we read a book (also practicing his sounds with the pictures in the book) and then it was off to bed!

We have really learned to make this a part of our life!! Peyton is leaving to go to MiMi's and Poppy's for the weekend tomorrow but that does not mean he gets a break from therapy. The whole family has been trained on this stuff so the detecting and discriminating will continue. Mommy and Daddy will just get a break!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Another day with Ms. Candace!!

Well we had another great day at therapy. Ms. Candace is our therapist and we absolutely adore her. She really loves what she does and loves my little boy which is VERY important!!

Peyton responded to a few sounds today. He is detecting some sounds but can't quite yet localize it. He is working very hard though. We got 3 new learn to listen sounds (bus,horse,cat) to go along with the 3 (airplane,phone,dog) from last week. We are also working on two function words: eat and shake.

I think Ms.Candace was proud of him and I know his Mommy and Daddy were! We worked on his new words on the way home. He acts like he really enjoys it!

We also got some good news at the Auditory-Verbal Center today. Our insurance approved Peyton's therapy, for now anyway. That really takes a lot off of us.

Peyton also walked a good bit tonight...FINALLY!! He has been walking some but not like I thought he should be! Tonight I turned around and he was coming across the kitchen. I was one proud Mama. He walked more than crawled tonight. Next week this time I will be wishing he was still just crawling!!!

Well it's about time to call it a night! Peyton has been out since about 8:30. Therapy really does him in. Now it is my turn! Good night!

In the beginning.....

Just a little information to let everyone know where we started and where we are now. Peyton is now 14 months old. He was diagnosed with Auditory Neuropathy on June 22, 2009. I had suspected something was not quite right for a very long time and could get no one to listen to me, except the nurse at my pediatrician's office. Finally at 8 months of age, I was sent to a local ENT. This ENT told me that there was nothing wrong with my child because he passed OAE's, although there was only one non-repeated response at 20 db in the sound booth. This ENT told me to come back in 4 months if I still had concerns.

At 12 months of age, I was asked to be referred to a pediatric ENT. Peyton had the same test results but now an ABR was ordered. It was a "no response" ABR that finally got us the diagnosis we were looking for. Peyton is now seeing Dr. Wendell Todd in Atlanta which is an AWESOME Pediatric ENT. We have also chose the Auditory-Verbal approach. We have just began Auditory-Verbal Therapy at the Auditory-Verbal Center in Atlanta once a week. Peyton is currently making a lot of vowel sounds but very few consonant sounds. We are currently working on sound detection and discrimination and he seems to be making some progress.

Peyton has no known cause of his AN as of now! We do know that Peyton had an auditory nerve but we were told that there is "no instruction manual" for Peyton. But thanks to wonderful friends (We love you Linda, Tiffany, and Debbie), we believe we are on the right track at this time. We are currently using no amplification and are seeing if we have any progress with therapy before trying hearing aids.

Today is Tuesday so we will be traveling to Atlanta this afternoon for AV therapy. I am looking forward to blogging Peyton's progress and hope that I will be of some help to someone like those mentioned above have been to us!