Update on Gemiini.org - It's been a long time coming!

What does a crab say?

Holy cow!  I did NOT intent to go six months before returning Jacob to the Gemiini Program. But, life, being life, threw us a curve ball and we've been knocked flat on our butts for the last four months dealing with test after test, blood work and doctors appointments for our oldest daughter (age 19) after it appears she had a TIA (a mini-stroke) at Christmas. 

Come to find out she has a hole in her heart and a macro adenoma (tumor) on her pituitary gland in her brain.  But....that's a story for another blog :)

During that same time, we discovered that Jake's T-tubes had fallen out.  How can that possibly be? Those buggers are sewn into the ear drum and don't fall out. They're surgically removed. 

Yeah, well.  This is Jake we're talking about.  If it can't be done, he will do it. 

So, in January, he had his second set of tubes put in, and the ENT said this ears had looked horrible when he did the surgery - pieces of flesh were removed, both ears were highly inflamed, lots of fluid behind the eardrum, etc.  Yeah, all sorts of nasty fun. 

But, when the surgery was done, he began to hear.  How do I know?  Well, he'd walk into the ENT's entryway, which was basically a stairwell, and yell to hear his echo.  It was adorable - in a cute sort of way.



What does a Lizard say?

We took him to an audiologist twice to make sure that he could hear and were told that he can hear down to 2 decibels (he's in the range of normal).  Wahoo!

Now, we begin playing the game of catch-up.  Still, at 4 1/2 years old, Jake is basically non-verbal.  Occasionally (as in once every 2 or 3 weeks) he will say a one or two word comment, which his hard to understand unless you're looking for it.  But other than that, life is all about a series of grunts, hand gestures, and pulling on my hand to show me what he wants.

Last week we were finally able to start Gemiini again - after nearly 7 months.  I figured we'd be starting all over again.  But you know what?  It wasn't like that at all. 

As soon as the videos came on, it was like he'd found his long lost friend.  Jake looked at me and his eyes lit up, then he began mimicking the animals and the sounds he'd learned previously.  It was like he'd never stopped!  I can' tell you how nice it was to know we hadn't lost all his hard work. 

We were able to get about 20 minutes in that morning.  And another 10 in during the afternoon. 

The big issue we're having right now is that I'm using the Ipad and he likes to play with the buttons - hitting play, then rewinding, then fast forward, etc.  I think it's a universal thing for kids his age.  I hear there's a way to lock the screen, which is my goal to figure out tonight. 

But I know that people were waiting on an update.  So this is the first.  I'll add a video of him watching Gemiini in a couple days so you can see where he's at in the process. Then I'll give you more updates as we progress.

Thanks for your patience!