~ WE HAD A CONVERSATION!! ~

for most of you, you know that our 4y old ruby's deaf ~ she had a cochlear implant (CI) last may so it's been just over a year now ~ we've seen great improvements in her hearing & speech (& she's profoundly deaf in both ears without the ci) ~ she's been going in for her mappings (where they fine tune what she's hearing & adjust things every few months since she's been activated ~ things have been moving along quite nicely until this past february & then we began noticing that she wasn't responding as well as she had been (they were noticing it at school too) ~ she wasn't speaking as clearly & she began to ONLY want to sign as she was getting very frustrated with us not understanding what she was trying to say ~ we took her to riley hospital where her surgery was done & they couldn't find anything as she was hearing them & her equipment was working, so we came home, but still we weren't 'were we had been' & it was getting very upsetting to all of us ~ i just took her back yesterday morning & we'd an appointment that was from 8-almost noon WHEW!, but we think we might have found our problem ~ they think (we'll see before long) they'd her turned up to loud where she was hearing things for them & responding, but when we'd leave & other sounds were around her, she'd almost shut down due to everything being so garbled ~ she was speaking what she was hearing which to us made it sound muffled & not audible, but to her that's what she was hearing ~ i asked them yesterday if we could just go back & map her (yesterday) at the mapping we'd done prior to last february when we all started seeing this problem arise ~ they did & said that they truly think she was just turned to high ~ they remapped her & on the way home we'd a very good conversation, not just a word here & a word there ~ it went something like this:

ruby: mommy, what's that?

mommy: that's a truck, you knew that!

ruby: oh, i didn't know!!

ruby: mommy, whatcha doing?

mommy: driving home & when we get there it's naptime!

ruby: i don't want to, i wanna eat!!

i was thrilled to be able to finally have a full fledged conversation with my little girl & it not consist of signing anything (we love to sign, but this was a milestone to us!!) ~ i truly think (pray) that this was the problem & we continue to make progress from here on out as she was flying & then came to a screeching halt ~ we'll keep you posted on what we find & how things are going ~ hugs!