Audiologist yesterday

Okay, just a quick note to update from the past blog. Annika only had to wear her cast for one week. The doctor wanted her range to increase to 15 degrees and in one week she was at 18 degrees. Talk about my little overacheiver!!! Now we have to fight with her to wear her AFO at night. She complains because she says the brace hurts her leg. Well, unfortunately that is true but that is the purpose. She gets to have her muscle stretched every night while she sleeps. Thank goodness for tylenol!!!

Yesterday Annika had a busy day. She was off to see the orthodics guy to get her new school shoes inserted with the lift she needs. She was a little sad as she had to leave her brand new school shoes with Dave and couldn't wear them home!! Then it was off to her first counseling appointment. She was very pleased that her couselor had the game UNO which is now her new favorite game to play (unfortunately we don't have it so that is on my list to purchase). Then we had to grab a quick lunch and then it was off to the twin cities to see her audiologist. My goodness what a difference 6 months can make. She did just awesome. There was a little setback on her single word test but the sounds she was off were just one sound off so not really big mistakes. But then she got 100% on her sentences in quiet. Wow!! It used to be that she could nail the single words but because she has the audiotory memory issue the sentences were a little difficult. Not anymore. She did then do the test in the noise and that proved to be a little more of a struggle so yes we see the need for the FM system and yet both her audiologist and I were impressed on how well she did because this was her first time in doing the noise sentence test (previous times she was done by the time we got to that portion so we quit). The not so fun news is that she had impacted wax in her ear canal so we had to run over to Dr. Rimmel's side of the office and have her wax removed. Our appointment went from 1 hour to 2 1/2 hours. UGH!! But in the end we got new ear molds poured and she is going to be sporting blue and pink ear molds to school this year!!! According to her it will match her outfits (she wears a lot of pink), her glasses which have a blue eye glass holder, and her new blue school shoes!! Way to color coordinate. She was so funny about this on the way in to see Barb. I had asked her what color she wanted for her earmolds and she would just tell me "you will have to wait and see"!!!

Appointments

Yesterday's appointments went very well. First before we had to see the doctors we got a little school shopping done. Annika has her backpack for school now and there are some of her supplies in the bag. She is so excited. Tonight I will try to get her to sit down and write her name on all of it and then we can put the bag in my closet until school starts. Otherwise she will be using all her supplies now!! She already had to "test" her box of crayons out in the car!!!

First doctor appointment was with the neurologist. He was glad that she has done well on the current combination of medications that we have her on now. No side effects which is a good thing. And I told him that the sleep issue resolved with the Keppra also so we no longer give her the melatonin before bed. I can't say whether this was helping the problem or no so for now we will just leave it alone. I told him I was disappointed that his current prescription did work (only in this way, it is great to have an answer) because I never got to tell him that he didn't know what he was doing. We were joking around at her last appointment and he always says that there is no true science to this so if it doesn't work or if it makes it worse I had every right to call him and tell him that he doesn't know what he is doing. He just laughed at me. Of course we did both say that we are glad that it seems to be working out well.
Then it was off to our next appointment. We had to drive through Wendy's on our way by in order to get something to eat. Annika was excited because she got a computer game in her kid's meal. I am sure we are going to have to try this game out some time soon.
The next appointment was with the rehab physician. He did agree that we should try to do the serial casting before doing the Botox. This way we can either prolong the time between injections and very possibly not have to do the injections at all. We are thinking that she would get about the same results either way and there were times that she would get the injection first and then still have to do the serial casting. So Annika has a blue cast on her left leg. She gets to pick out the color of her cast. Ryan wanted her to get an orange cast so we could put red racing stripes on it but she told him that she would do that next time. So if she has to get another cast put on next week it will be orange. Ryan will be in charge of putting the red flames on it because I am not the artist.
It is not the best time to have a cast on because it is now going to be the warmest we have had it all summer the next week or so. Also it is Cokato Corn Carnival next week and of course that means she gets to go on rides. Well, she will go cast and all if I know her. It took her a little bit of time yesterday to get used to walking with that cast again. But she got lots of practice because we spent the evening at the park in Cokato as that is where Youth Group was. So we packaged up her cast as best we could and let her play. She is supposed to avoid playgrounds because the wood chips or rocks can get under the cast and cause irritation. She wore out pretty quickly on the equipment and then sat on the swing or watched the big kids play volleyball. It was such a great night to be outside that I couldn't make her stay in. Now just to keep her out of the lake!!!

Please pinch me!!!

I will post this on the blog for those of you who follow this and do not have connection with me on Facebook. Last night Annika came home from the zoo and sat down to eat her supper. She was way too busy to eat while at the zoo so she had 2 plates of hotdish. I left her eating her second plate and went back to get a few things done. After a little bit I went back out to the kitchen to check on whether she was done or not. Here she was at the sink with her dishes. She was filling up the sink with water and adding the dish soap. She looked up at me and said, "I'm washing my dishes, okay?" Okay?!?!?!?! That's wonderful!!! I helped her finish getting the sink ready to wash the dishes and she looked at me and said, "I will dry them when I'm done, okay?" She has always loved to wash her play dishes in my sink but now she has moved over to helping out with her own dishes. What a kid!!!

Today we head off to the neurologist and the rehab physician. I will post later on what they decide to do or if we are just fine. I am thinking she will come home with a cast on her leg so I have started to prepare her for this. Last night when she heard this she headed off to her room to find her old cast. I don't know if she thought maybe I could put that one on and then I don't need a new one or what. We couldn't find it so I have no idea what she would have done with it.

Northern Voices picnic and a very busy week

Last Thursday we made the trip into the cities (and driving this again makes me very thankful that we don't make the daily trip anymore) to attend the Northern Voices Alumni picnic. It was a great time. Annika had a great time seeing her classmates and having a chance to play and dance. We had a band there at the park that played for over an hour. They had a tractor pulling cars behind it so they had train rides. We even were able to see her previous audiologist so it was great catching up on things!!! Her friend Joe was ready to leave and then Annika came up to him and asked him if he would play with her. Of course Joe's mom couldn't leave then. He was able to stay a few more minutes so they could play some more. Thanks Amy!!!

This week is going to be a very busy week for Annika. Last night she packed her suitcase and headed off to Cassie's house. They are going to the Como Zoo today. She was so excited!!! Tomorrow we will make our trip to the cities and see both the neurologist and then her Botox doctor. I don't believe that we will be doing Botox tomorrow and that is the good news. The bad news is that we are going to do the serial casting on her instead of the Botox. Sure, now when the forecast is that it is going to start to warm up she will not be able to go swimming. Hopefully we will be able to get the cast off quickly because we were invited to over her NV teacher's house to go swimming and I was going to try to set this up but I will have to wait for the cast to come off. Then Annika will finish off her week with all the appointments that we have to fit in because she is basically off for the next 2 days.

July Update

It has been a very busy month for Annika. After she said good-bye to Marcus, it was time for summer school to start for her. Now she has an appointment or school every day except for Monday. The weather hasn't cooperated very much, according to Annika, because she has not been able to go swimming very much.

Last week on top of everything else, it was VBS at the church. Annika had a great time but it was bittersweet for her. It is hard when your life has changed so much in such a short time. The highlight of the week for most of the kids was the inflatable jumping frog that was there on the last night. Annika had a great time in there. Most of the time she would just sit on her knees and bounce along while everyone else did the jumping for her.

This past weekend we went up to Winger to visit my parents. This also meant a trip up to Roseau to see my Grandma (Annika's great-grandma). We had lunch with great-grandma and then all our family that was up there gathered to throw Mom (me) a surprise birthday party. Annika was able to met cousins that she had not met before (except when they were really little). Peyton, who is 7 also, gave her a big hug and played UNO with all of us. Colby, who is 4, didn't want anything to do with the hugging of a girl and then when it was time to leave, he said to Annika, "Would you go home already?" Both Mom's got a laugh out of this. Leave it to the 4 year old to say it how he feels.

The next day we took a trip to the lake with Grandma and Grandpa after church. The water was a little cool for Annika so she spent her time walking in the lake and then playing on the beach only to do the same pattern all over again. Dan and Jon decided to tan themselves while texting on their phones after they had a dip in the lake. Leave it to the teenagers!!!!

I will try to keep you posted as the month of August is going to be full of appointments for Annika. Also we will find out who her 1st grade teacher will be by the end of the month!! Annika can't wait for school to start.

Annika says good bye

Yesterday we took Annika's brother Marcus to the twin cities and dropped him off at the motel. He leaves today for basic training in Fort Leonardwood MO. They had a great time together. We spent most of the afternoon at Mall of America. We shopped at Barnes and Noble, ate at the Rainforest Cafe, went to Marcus's favorite stores just to look, let them play the boat game at the park, had fun at Legoland and just spent time together. Even though Marcus knew he had to go, he really just wanted to stay with us as long as he could. Annika thinks that Marcus should come home on Sunday when her other brothers do. It is going to be a long 5 months!!! We are putting together a calendar for her to be able to count down the days until he comes home. We will all miss him!!!

I took Annika into American Doll store yesterday. Big mistake!!! She is now going to be saving up all her money in order to be able to buy herself a doll now. I might be able to talk her into buying the cheaper version at Target and then we can get clothes from American Doll but I won't count on that.

Happy 4th of July

Well, I can't believe it. The 4th of July is over with already. Where is the summer going? Annika was able to spend some time with her cousins yesterday for the 4th of July. Our original plans were changed and all in all it worked out for the best. We weren't planning to watch fireworks with our first plan and we went over to Waconia for fireworks last night with the cousins and the kids had a great time. Today was a little harder to handle because we were a little over tired but all in all was good. We went over to my sister in law's for a BBQ for supper and then off to fireworks by 9 p.m. The fireworks were short but that being said we won't complain because then the bugs didn't get much of a chance to find us. Today Annika said good-bye to two of her brothers for a week. That was a little hard for her and even she told us that she didn't want Jon to leave and he is the one that says she doesn't love him. Well, he now knows that she does really care for him and will miss him. It is just that those two have this love hate relationship. It will be a rough week for Annika because then on Tuesday evening she will need to say good bye to Marcus as he leaves for Missouri to start his military career.