[DADA POSTING]
Been a week or so since a post, so here's a little update. Evy has been doing great, and we all had a nice holiday last week. Evy has been eating up a storm, and we're trying to keep up with her cravings, which change amazingly fast. I'm not sure if things just pop into her head that she likes and so she asks for them, regardless of whether she actually wants it right then. She is very into potatoes, ice cream, cookies, and oranges, which should have her chubbed up in no time. She is also very excited to be eating and to have her tubie out. We were at the hospital this week for tests, and she would immediately tell every nurse or doctor who would come in "no tubie!" Half of the time, they didn't even know what she was talking about, but loved her enthusiasm. She would usually follow that up with "Santa come!"
Speaking of which, we are very excited for Christmas. The girls finally get the idea of Santa, and know about naughty and nice. Although that hasn't really stopped them from being naughty, they know to say "nice" every now and then to remind us. Evy can't wait to get a tree, and Stella often walks around saying "ho, ho, ho!" attempting to have a deep Santa voice, which makes her sound like a robot or zombie or something. She also gets worried whenever we have a fire that Santa won't be able to get down the chimney.
As I mentioned, Evy is having most of her end of treatment tests this week. Monday was her kidney ultrasound, and her kidney's look good but may be a bit small. We're not really sure if this is a problem, or how small she is for her age, since we haven't been to a pediatrician in over a year to get her charted on the little percentile graph. Nobody seems to worried, so we'll just keep an eye on them as she grows.
Today, we were scheduled for her hearing test, which wasn't until 12:30 so she couldn't eat after about 6am. She did pretty well, but kept asking for snacks. When we got there, they decided to try and do a "behavioral" hearing test rather than one under sedation, since she is getting older. She ended up doing really well and didn't need to be sedated at all. They just had to train her that whenever she heard a sound (the "little birdie" or the "owl") she had to drop a ping-pong ball in the bucket. At first, she was a bit shy, and we weren't sure if she was going to get it. She just kinda kept looking at me when the sound went off in her headset, or watching the audiologist to try and see what she was doing. She also initially thought that we were doing physical therapy stuff, and was working on trying to get her right hand to pick up the balls, so I kept putting them in her left hand for her. But then we told her to put the ball up to her other ear, and try and hear the bird inside. She picked right up on that and did great. It was adorable to see her sitting there, with a headphone coming out of one ear, and a ping-pong ball held up to the other, smiling, listening intently for the sound. And there were only one or two times when she went a little crazy and started cramming lots of balls in the buckets. I was surprised she never tried to play her favorite game of "let's throw stuff on the floor and laugh while the adults pick it up!" So we finished early and headed to the cafeteria to break her fasting.
Friday will be her MRI/CT scan. This is the most important one, but we are certainly optimistic that all will be clear, since her previous scans have all gone that way. It's early in the morning, so we won't have to deal with a hungry girl too much.
Other than that we're cruising along with therapy, and trying to get decorated for the holidays. Santa is going to be all over town soon, and our calendar is quickly filling up with fun stuff. Hopefully Evy won't be quite as shocked as she was last year when she saw Santa. Of course, he was wearing a mask because of swine flu precautions...
