Photos of Post-op/recovery

Here is our wounded warrior right after surgery drinking pedialyte.














Stephen showing his disgust for the dressing, as daddy cuts it off.














Vaseline slathered over the beautiful stitches to keep it moist














Nothing holding Stephen back from learning to walk

Two days to go

For those of you who have remembered us in your prayers for this big week, we thank you. Lord willing, Stephen will have his surgery on Thursday morning. We don't know the time until the evening before. We will be heading down tomorrow for a pre-op appointment and stay the night in the area.

Stephen has mostly recovered from his sinusitis. He does have a little runny nose today. Hopefully that won't be a problem come Thursday morning.

Genetic Testing

Many of you have been curious to know the cause of our children’s deafness. We initially, with Molly, decided not to do genetic testing. Once Stephen was diagnosed with deafness we knew that it was without a doubt genetic. It was Molly’s speech therapist that recently suggested doing testing after expressing her concern for Molly’s oral motor and speech difficulties. We thought more about it and realized that, before the move, it would make sense to see a Geneticist thru UVA’s health system.

Last Tuesday, we met with the Geneticist and Genetics Counselor to discuss our options with how we should proceed with testing. The first option was to do a simple inexpensive blood screen that would detect the two most common genetic causes for non-syndromic deafness (connexin26 and connexin 30). We decided to go with this option as a start before we drained the finances with the complex testing. They only drew a small amount of blood from our brave Molly. She was happy to be rewarded with a band-aid. Oh, the simple things in life!!! :)

Three days later, the Genetics Counselor called with the results. Connexin 26 was detected (ending our testing process). We are grateful that the results showed that it is not syndromic and that there are no other associated medical findings present with it (guessing her naughty behavior doesn't count). This gene is inherited in an autosomal recessive manner —meaning both Mike and I are carriers. This still means that our chances of having a deaf child is 25% (even if we have 2 that are deaf–the chances don’t change). Also we have a 50% chance of having a hearing child who is a carrier and a 25% chance of having a hearing child who is not a carrier. Fascinating stuff! With or without the odds, we serve a sovereign God who has ordained this to happen for His purposes.

Changes

"I like my new house, I like my new church, I like my new Target"
This is what Miss Molly has been saying over and over for the past two weeks since the move. Thankfully Molly is adjusting well to these many changes. She is also thrilled to live within an hour from both sets of grandparents and her 6 cousins.

Unfortunately, this move takes us further away from UVA health system and the kid's Audiologist, Speech Therapist and ENT. We will continue to use their services for now, though the drive is about three hours. Our hope is to find a speech therapist in this area so that we can continue with weekly sessions.

We are two weeks away from Stephen's scheduled surgery. He has been sick with congestion and a junky cough for about two weeks. Our prayer is that he will be well enough to proceed with surgery on the 20th. I do remember having these same concerns with Molly a few weeks before. God has this in his control!

Disney Halloween

Molly chose to go as Sleeping Beauty and Stephen is dressed as Squirt the sea turtle (recycled costume from Molly).