I arrived home last night around 11pm (from a week-long visit to Florida), to a house full of balloons and flowers for me! My husband outdid himself with 4 large bouquets of Irises from our garden and 2 large bouquets of balloons in the living room. When I went in our bedroom, there was another large bouquet of balloons waiting for me there, too! He wanted to surprise me for my birthday! I guess it’s official – I am now 50 years old! My birthday is today and we’ll be celebrating with our children tonight with a family dinner in Minneapolis.

My trip to Florida was wonderful! I missed my hubby, but was willing to “represent” the Minnesota family,along with Kinsey, for our niece’s graduations. Chet’s parents picked me up from the airport in Ft. Lauderdale and several people stopped by the house to say hello that same evening. It was also a church night, so I got to see lots of friends there. I had to do some experimenting to see what would work the best for me to hear, and found that my neckloop does not work with their assistive listening devices, but my personal one worked well (that’s what I do at our home congregation). I still don’t understand nearly as much if I can’t lip-read and I was seated in an area where I wasn’t able to do that very well, so I missed some, but learned what I would need to do for the other times I would be there. It rained or was overcast most of the week, and there were warnings about rip-tides and currents the whole time, so I didn’t go to the beach to swim. My niece’s graduation party was near the beach, so I did get to see it at least! 🙂 We had a wonderful time celebrating their big day with friends and family. We also had a family party for Kinsey while we were there. It was a good gathering to honor her! I have a friend in Florida who is an ASL interpreter, and she spent time with me just about every day! We had a great time and she spent a lot of it teaching me signs, answering questions, and practicing with me and encouraging me! The church there offers interpreting and I was able to take advantage of that opportunity several times. It was such a great learning experience! I was able to see some of the things we talked about in class in a real life situation. I was able to see the difference between singing, speaking, and praying. I was able to learn some new vocabulary that is used in the church setting. I don’t know enough yet for that to help me a lot in understanding what was being said, but since I could also hear much of it, it was a great combo.

I have found that I am really functioning quite well with the hearing aid the clinic loaned me recently. I was surprised at how well I did in Florida, even in group situations. My testing showed that I have 55% word comprehension with the hearing aid, but with lip reading I believe I am doing much better than that. It has me thinking that I should probably wait to have the cochlear implants done until I have another episode. I’ve heard stories about people who have done great with them, and also of people who have done very poorly with them and choose not to even use them. I know the doctors and audiologists say that natural hearing is always better, so I think that since I’m functioning so well (MUCH better than I was even 2 or 3 weeks ago) that I should keep that for as long as I can(remember that when you have the cochlear implant surgery most people lose all residual natural hearing they had left and are profoundly deaf without the implant). I guess the question remains whether I should go ahead and have the ear that is not aidable implanted and have the hearing aid for the other or just wait and do both together if/when the time comes. I’ll have to look into that further, but I have time to figure it out.

While I was in Florida, my Uncle Jim died. He has had many serious complications from his diabetes for the last 2 years. We got to visit with him while we were in Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago. I’m so glad. He didn’t suffer at the end and my mom and sister and niece were able to be with him as he passed. We’ll be heading to Oklahoma again next week for his memorial service and burial.

It seems like so much has happened in such a short amount of time. I guess that’s because it really has! It’s only been 2 months since my most recent hearing loss episode. Since that time I’ve had to work at adjusting to that, educate myself about cochlear implants, deal with the insurance company about that, make decisions about the specific device I might want, try to increase my knowledge of ASL, was hospitalized in April, went on Coumadin and had to educate myself about that and about blood clots, had a sleep study, started using a CPAP and had to educate myself about that, had many doctor appointments and blood draws, planned 3 grad parties for my daughter, lost my uncle (who I have been close to), traveled to Oklahoma and Florida, all while physically recovering from the blood clots in both my legs and my lungs and from having been on steroids for nearly a year. Whewwww…….no wonder I’m tired. After next week’s trip it will be nice to have a little down time before people start arriving for the wedding in early August.

I know this is more of a “catch up on what’s going on” post than a particularly thoughtful or insightful one. Several have told me they like to keep up with it all, so here it is! I have a lot to do today to take care of things after having been away (like pay bills!) but I will do the things that are a priority and also spend some time relaxing and enjoying my birthday! I suppose I’ll have to change out of my pjs at some point! Thanks for checking in on my blog! Please pray for my continued recovery and for safe travels next week for my family and comfort for those grieving the loss of my uncle.