All Things Tessa

Vision:

Tessa had her 6 month follow up at Children's Eye Care on March 14th.  Unfortunately, we've been digesting some new information.  Dr. Trigler detected astigmatism that he hadn't detected before...so we are now in "preparation mode" for glasses one day. It's funny, I told him I could handle a right CI and a left CI, but that thinking about glasses too, put me a bit over the edge :(

 Just like everything else though, time will tell. It's all a matter of how bad it gets and in what amount of time.

 We also talked about potential surgery on her right eye.  Tessa's muscles in her right eye are still lagging a bit and her Vision Therapist (Deb with SoonerStart) would really like for us to consider doing what it takes to help correct the laziness in it.  She has always said Tessa has made such incredible progress with her vision and she just hates that there is this physical presence of an issue with the crossing of her eyes/laziness of the right eye.  Surgery doesn't sound like it would be a huge deal...out-patient with minimal healing time and there's not a strict timeline to get it done. So we'll just wait and see there too.  If it starts getting worse, we'll definitely address it sooner than later.

Insurance Denial:

We recently received our first "insurance denial" letter in the mail from Blue Cross...it's all in code, but we believe it is a denial of the tie-downs we ordered with her Medical Stroller.  The tie-downs would allow Tessa to be transported in her stroller in a school bus, etc.  We still have the blue demo stroller for now, but we can't imagine life without it.  We started the ordering process on Tessa's stroller in December....without problems, we were already looking at a 6 month wait....who knows now with this partial 'denial'.  We are hoping they have gotten this sorted out somewhere between BCBS and Medicaid and that we will be receiving her very own pink stroller soon!

Left CI Surgery:

We had Tessa's appointment with her ENT on March 26th.  We got her left cochlear implant surgery scheduled for Tuesday June 5th!  Tessa's left tube has already fallen out of her ear, so we'll be watching her closely over the next couple of months to make sure she stays free and clear of ear infections.  As long as that's the case, and no health issues arise, we should be good to go on June 5th.  We also learned a bit of unsettling news that day from the doctor...the implant that Tessa received in her right ear last year, has been failing in some cases.  Tessa's doctor has actually had to remove the device in some of his patients and implant the model that was in production right before the one Tessa got.  He said if Tessa's hasn't failed thus far...that we should be fine...but we will definitely tuck that bit of information away, because all in all, it is technology.  All of the external hardware should be the same, but the implant itself, will be the Nucleus Freedom (instead of the Nucleus CI24RE, we believe).  From what we understand, the only real difference is that the Freedom is a slightly bigger implant, so there will be more of a bulge under her skin on her head where they put the implant, than there is with the one on the right.    

Therapy:

Beginning this week, Tessa will have Speech-Language therapy (and Occupational therapy) on Tuesday mornings and Speech-Feeding & OT on Friday mornings.  We took a bit of a break from The Children's Center while they were getting all of the pre-authorizations and insurance coverage worked out, but we are excited to get back going with Tessa's therapy routines!  And to introduce a new realm of Speech therapy too!  We are hoping she can make some strides in speech between now and her left CI surgery.  We are excited to see what develops over the next two months!

Things are busy, but we are doing well!  Our house is still on the market, 365+ days now, but we are continuing to hope and pray for God's timing in all of that.  With our constant list of "to-dos"...I am so thankful for my relationship with the Lord...to know He loves us and promises to guide and direct us as we diligently seek to know Him more.  I can't imagine a life without the trust and the faith I have in Him.

~Whitney