Not So Fun Day

We had a crazy, nerve wracking day today.

Connor woke up at about 4:30 this morning and decided it was time to get up. He giggled and talked to himself until about 7:00 while I hoped in vain he would go back to sleep, and then he transitioned to his demanding "I'm talking to you Mommy and I know you can hear me" yell, so I gave up and we got up. He had breakfast and about 9:00 decided it was now time to take a nap, which was not to be as his FM system fitting was at 10:00. I bundled one very grumpy, sleepy kid into the car and we headed off to Mary Bridge Hospital's Speech and Hearing Center.

Connor was very patient with his audiologist Megan and me as we put his new FM system through it's paces. This thing is cool.

Now, from the very start, we decided that we would not try to hide Connor's hearing aids. For one thing, he doesn't have enough hair to cover them, and those beige hearing aids don't match his skin tone. Also they remind me of nursing homes. Also we have beige carpet and cats who squirrel things away under all our major appliances. That's just a disaster waiting to happen.

There's also the fact that somehow I equate wanting to hide Connor's hearing aids with being ashamed that he has them. We are not ashamed in the slightest of Connor's special needs, and I want to make sure that Connor is aware of that. So I was thrilled to discover that Connor's hearing aid could come in another color. Specifically, one of these:

This is the Oticon Tego. Connor has the "sunset orange" variety-- the third from the left. It goes with most of his outfits, and as an added bonus, is easy to find in the dark.

Connor's new FM system, also by Oticon, is just as cool. It's not a day-glo color-- it's silver-- but it does include one of those little lapel mikes for me like all the news anchors wear. I wonder if people will start thinking I'm surreptitiously recording them in the grocery store.

For those of you not familiar with them, an FM system consists of three major parts: the broadcaster, the reciever, and the boot. Two of them fit onto Connor's hearing aid, and one of them I wear. I wear a microphone that hooks into the broadcaster. Connor wears the wireless reciever on his hearing aid, along with an "FM Boot" that connects his hearing aid to the reciever. Basically, when I talk, the microphone picks up my voice and transmits it through the broadcastor directly to his the reciever, which transmits the sound through the boot and into his hearing aid, making my voice louder. This is great for situations where there is a lot of background noise, like the grocery store or the mall, or for places where Connor can't see my face or hands, like in the car. It will also be pretty essential for school, because the teacher will probably be moving around the room and there will be a lot of distractions.

So that was the good stuff for today. Let's move on to the bad stuff.

Apparently this morning, with all the craziness of Connor waking up early and being crabby and phone calls and what not, I forgot to give Connor two of his medications. This is the first time I've ever forgotten to give Connor a dose of anything, so I have a pretty good track record. He got his aspirin and his prevacid, which are both pills. I left his Reglan and his Keppra sitting on the counter and didn't discover this until this evening.

If we skip a dose of his Reglan, it's not a huge problem. His Reglan is for his acid reflux, and skipping one dose is probably not going to be a huge issue. His Keppra, however, is for his seizures. So I skipped a dose of his seizure med.

And this afternoon, he had a seizure.

This is his first one since he started on the Keppra. We called the doctor, adjusted his medication up, and were told to keep a close eye on him. It wasn't until hours later that I discovered his medication, still sitting on the table.

I now feel horribly, horribly guilty. Connor's seizures are a big deal, and by not giving him his medication, I may have actually caused one. Now I don't know if he needed his medication adjusted or not-- looking back, he might have had a seizure Monday as well, but since it was in the middle of the night and I only saw the super crabby aftermath, I'm not sure if he actually had one or if he just had a bad dream. At any rate, I'm going to have nightmares about this for a long, long time.

So all in all, a crazy, nerve wracking day.

~Jess