Under the knife....

Wednesday May 14th is the day Elin will have surgery. We are equally excited and nervous. She is scheduled for 8:30am which is great because we get it done first thing and we don't have to starve her for the morning hours. The surgery itself should take about 2 hours and we are staying the night at the hospital. I'm very happy we get to spend the night- coming home after a big surgery like this would make me VERY nervous. We plan to be home some time on Thursday.

The surgery is minimally invasive. Elin will have a bit of hair shaved off her right side behind her ear. The surgeon makes an incision behind the ear and carves out a bit of room in her skull bone for the implant to reside. He delicately threads the electrode array through her cochlea and all should be set. We are hoping to try to maintain as much of the delicate structures of the cochlea. Who knows- in the future there might be new technology that uses the cochlea even with dead hair cells. So much to think about!

She will heal from the surgery and then have the device activated on June 10th. We have decided to go with the CI company that offers a fully waterproof processor that can be worn anywhere on the body and also a behind the ear processor. I spent a great deal of time "interviewing" the CI manufacturers so I am confident we made the right decision for our family.

Annoyingly, Regence has decided to deny the CI surgery, citing it is an exclusion. We just found this out last week and are working tirelessly with Seattle Children's to get this rectified. CI surgery is normally covered but Regence is stating that the surgeon didn't turn in enough documentation to warrant the surgery. Total BS and we really don't need this added stress at this point in our lives. Any one wanting to help us fight this battle with Regence would be a welcome partner. Ugh.

Also- we took part in the Bellevue 5K/10k race a few weeks ago. It raised money for Seattle Children's hospital and Kindering- kind of a perfect event for us to be a part of. We rallied the troops and ended up with somewhere between 25-30 people on "team Elin." It was a cold and windy day but the course was fun and it was such a wonderful feeling to be surrounded by so many people pulling for our little girl and supporting causes close to our hearts. Kyra made up cute shirts for the family to wear and we will be making this an annual event. So don't worry, if you missed it this year, you can always join us next May.

Recently Elin has been making pretty large strides. She belly crawls all over now and is enjoying her new found freedom. She is babbling much more and saying mmmm more often so I am anxiously awaiting the day mama is uttered. Last week we took her into Kindering and had her try the lightgait machine. It is a harness standing/walking contraption and she did just fine. Didn't scream and seemed to enjoy it but she does better walking behind the kitchen chair as we push it across the wood floor. She is taking steps on her own as we do this so that in itself is incredibly encouraging.