Curing Emmi's Illnesses

After eating an entire cupcake (which Emmi insisted was "breakfast" despite being 4:30pm), Emmi attempted to hand me the cupcake wrapper.

"Put it in the trash, Ems," I said.

She put her hand to her head. In a pathetic voice she says, "I'm too sick," while holding the cupcake wrapper out to me.

"Hmmm," I said. "I guess you can't go swimming."

Her eyes lit up. "Swimming! I not sick!"

The wrapper is in the trash, and I still have not moved from the couch.

And then there were six...

Emmi's Audiology appointment went about like I expected it to on Wednesday. Okay, maybe not quite like I expected it to. I didn't expect all of the swine flu notices and posters and hand sanitizers and separate parking. Emmi, however, loved the hand sanitizers. We had to stop at all (nine) stations on the way (ten whole feet) to the elevator bank. One mother with her small child eyed Emmi suspiciously as Emmi sanitized her hands for the fourteenth time. When the elevator arrived, the mom looked around nervously before finally stepping onto the elevator and squeezing herself into the back corner. I know she thought Emmi must be contagious with some strange illness with all that hand washing. In reality, she just loves the stuff. For fun, and perhaps the only fun I had all day, I fake coughed all the way to the fifth floor. I am pretty sure that woman is now convinced she has the swine flu. Lady, unless you can suddenly catch protein metabolism disorders (or cuteness) you aren't getting anything from her. Although, Jill did have strep throat this week... But Emmi and I? Nothing. Well not nothing. Emmi is having more trouble with her implant.

The short that has come and gone on the left side is persistently back now. Emmi showed signs the passed month of disturbance from the short in the two electrodes. Certain sounds seemed almost painful. There was a lot of intermittence. Some days she could discriminate wonderfully, others she could not. At other times, she outright refused to wear the left processor. With this information and the presence of the short between electrodes 2 and 5, the decision was made to switch them off for good. All efforts have been exhausted with those electrodes. The have tried turning them both off for a period. They have tried turning just one off. They tried them both back on. Now, they have concluded they must stay off. On top of that, this is the side that migrated out of the cochlea. Electrodes 9-12 are no longer in the cochlea, leaving Emmi with only six working electrodes. What does all this mean? Well, it means it is time to seriously consider re-implantation (hmm..seems like I said that four months ago. But what do I know, I am just her mom who is with her everyday observing her all the time.).