First trip to the Indianapolis Zoo...and other news

We took Kimi to the Indianapolis Zoo for the first time today!  She LOVED it!  Especially the dolphin show, with the zoo train a close second.

Since my last post, Kimi has lost several teeth (don't you just love the toothless smile of a 7-year-old?!), she "graduated" from Kindergarten, and continues to pick up hundreds of words!  The other day, she told Elizabeth to "Knock it off!" because she was irritating her!  (Not sure where she heard that phrase; but it cracked me up to hear her say it!)  Then, a week or so ago, she was sitting all slouched down with her knees up in the air and her dress practically around her waist, and I said, "You are a young lady - please sit up and pull your dress down."  She responded, "I not young "wady", I Kimi!"  Never a dull moment with that kid.

She continues to advance in her development; but still becomes very insecure when her regular schedule changes.  She is still very afraid of sudden loud sounds.  And she loves to quietly play alone in her room after a lot of activity and overstimulation.  She still has some food texture aversion.  But, overall, she has made amazing progress in her first three years with us!  After she falls asleep, I like to go in and just watch her sleeping peacefully.  I thank God that he blessed us with such a sweet child, and pray regarding His plans for her life, and thank Him for allowing us to be a part of it.

Elizabeth is growing like a weed - obviously going into her big growth spurt.  She can swim like a fish and plays violin and flute.  She received her bronze award in Girl Scouts, working with several of the girls in her troop to create a preschool craft, complete with materials and instructions, that were sent to an orphanage in China for the preschool-age children there.  She volunteers at our church, helping with the two-year-olds class.  In March, she went to the Regional Spelling Bee and made it to the third round before misspelling a word.  At the end of this month, she begins sixth grade!  She is one amazing young lady!  In a couple of weeks, we will be traveling to Tennessee to celebrate her 10th Gotcha Day reunion with several other families who we became close friends with while in China in 2004.  Where does the time go?!

We have also become grandparents again - this makes #19!  Our oldest daughter, Rachel, gave birth to her ninth son in May!  And our son, Eddie, will be graduating from the Police Academy this month.  Our daughter, Cheryl, has decided to homeschool her five children beginning this Fall.

Yes, our lives are very busy these days.  But it is a wonderful kind of busy that I wouldn't trade for the world.

Beginning to.....READ!!!

Kimi is beginning to ...

READ!  

Can you believe it?!  Well here's proof!  Yes, these are "sight" words; but she also knows the sounds the letters "make" which helps her with these words!  She has made SO much progress in the last six months, just since she began Kindergarten.  She still must spend quite a bit of time each day in the Resource Room, and continues to receive Speech and Physical Therapy.  But she also spends a lot of time with her peers in the regular Kindergarten classroom.  We are SO blessed to have such a wonderful team of teachers and therapists working with Kimi at White Oak Elementary School!   It will be quite awhile before she catches up with her peers; but considering where she was three years ago today... well, suffice it to say, she has come a looong way!

No surgery today after all...

Well, late last night, we received a call from Kimi's Orthopedist.  He said he had been doing some more research and was having second thoughts about performing the hip surgery on Kimi today.  He went on to say the recent research showed evidence that in many children with Spina Bifida, performing the surgery to correct the hips might end up negatively affecting their long-term ability to walk.  In fact, many doctors are no longer doing the surgery on children with Spina Bifida for this reason.  When I asked about the possibility of arthritis as he had said, he said, that may not be an issue if she is going to lose the ability to walk in the short term due to "neurological decline".  We agreed it would be best if Kimi has an updated examination by her Neurosurgeon, so that he can assess the situation and then consult with the Orthopedist.  Also, he is going to order a "Gait Study" to determine if there is anything else that can be done to help her continue walking.  It is even possible, Kimi's hip sockets may continue to develop, allowing the femurs to better fit within the socket (this was news to me!).  So, the Neurosurgen's assessment, having the Gait Study done, both doctors consulting about it, and giving Kimi some more time to grow and walk, has now become the plan moving forward.  This could all change if the Neuro assessment and subseqent consultation results in a recommendation for surgery.  But, for now, there will be no hip surgery for Kimi in the next few months...and maybe, not for a couple of years.

It was all a LOT to digest!  But Dr. Kayes said  he still wanted to do an Arthrogram (joint x-ray with dye) on Kimi's hip joints.  So, she was anesthetized and taken for the test.   The doctor returned and said the right hip is actually much better than he thought!  It is actually pretty much in the socket!  He said the left hip is only slightly displaced - not completely displaced as he had previously thought, based on her x-ray.  So, he felt strongly that we need to hold off on the hip surgery for now, get this other information and then discuss a new plan moving forward.

I KNOW this is an answer to prayer, as so many prayed specifically that God would make it very clear whether we should subject Kimi to this procedure.  I had been praying for wisdom for us and for the surgeon.  And this is the first time I have ever had a surgeon call the night before a scheduled operation due to re-thinking the decision to move forward.  And then, to top it off, Kimi began running a 100 degree temp at the hospital!  So, I know we are doing the right thing for now.

Here is a photo of Kimi this morning shortly before the Arthrogram.  (She was given a sheet of Doc McStuffins' stickers and put them all over her surgical "jammies".)

Kimi is having hip surgery tomorrow.

Kimi will be having surgery tomorrow at St. Vincent's on both hips to correct her hip dysplasia.  For some background, when we adopted Kimi in February, 2011, her lower legs were EXTREMELY weak and she couldn't even raise her foot to take a step to walk forward.  She could sit with her legs in very unusual positions and could turn her left foot backwards!  After arriving home and having some tests done, we learned she had a badly tethered spinal cord, and needed some additional corrective surgery on her lower spinal cord area, that had not been done while she lived in China. 

The spinal surgery was done in May, 2011 and provided her with nerve sensation all the way down to her feet, per the Neurosurgeon.  Subsequently, we also had Kimi fitted with AFOs (ankle/foot orthotics) to make her ankles more stable.  With healing and practice, she began to walk using a reverse walker. 

Eighteen months after her sugery, in October, 2012, she began walking independently; although she still fell sometimes.  So, as of today, she has only been walking one year.  Her original Orthopedist at Riley Hospital told us in 2011 that she had hip dysplasia in both hips (the hips are slightly out of the sockets).  He was very discouraging about her ability to ever walk.  We began to see a different Orthopedist in 2012 that was highly recommended.  When we went to see him last Spring and he saw her walk independently across the room, he stated he had concerns about the walking causing stress to her hip joints which would ultimately result in arthritis in both hips.  He recommended surgery to fix the hip dysplasia.  He said her hips and femurs would need to be broken in order to position them correctly in the joints.  They would also use plates and screws to keep everything in place, that would need to be surgically removed later.  He also diagnosed a hip socket deformity on her left side that allowed her left foot to turn backwards.  He wanted to correct that also.  He said she would be in a Spica cast (body cast) for 3-6 weeks post-surgery, and would have to learn to walk again, which could take up to one year!

I had a difficult time accepting the idea of putting her through all of that...especially the part about temporarily taking away her ability to walk!  But then, late this summer, we began to see Kimi falling more and walking less.  Her teachers noticed it, too.  Our Orthopedic surgeon x-rayed Kimi's hips and the dysplasia had gotten worse. 

So we knew what we had to do. 

We have prepared Kimi as best as we can, as she still has developmental delays from her years of neglect in the orphanage.  Her speech therapist, Shelly, worked with us to create a little book explaining it all to Kimi at a level she can understand.  Kimi seems fine with it at this point in time and says she wants a blue cast - so we will see if they can accommodate her request.  She will be at Peyton Manning Children's Hospital for five days.  I plan to post updates on this blog.  Prayers are VERY MUCH appreciated for Kimi and her two surgeons.  Here are some photos of her walking progress from the Spring of 2011 to the Summer of 2013.

 

Kimi's language development

I haven't written very much about Kimi's language development, so I thought I would write an update about her language development progress. When we brought Kimi home, she had no receptive or spoken language at all. (Mandarin is spoken in Jiangsu Province.) This was due to the fact that she was not exposed to language in the orphanage and never spoken to, and did not receive adult interaction.  Kimi was also not allowed to cry, according to an older child adopted shortly after Kimi.  After working with her for two weeks, Kimi said her very first word, "Da", right before we left China to bring her home.

We began speech therapy in mid-2011. However, the first therapist we had, spent more time on feeding therapy than speech therapy and could only see her twice a month. She also expressed concerns about whether Kimi would ever initiate speech, due to her late start in speech development, and the fact she would only repeat words at that point in time. After a few months, we changed to a different therapist who has been working with Kimi ever since.

After being with us for six months, Kimi could only say a few words, but could understand a LOT of English, as shown by her responding actions. By the time she was home nine months, I counted 36 words that she could say, most were names of objects and most were not very clear. Her longest phrase at that time was a self-initiated "Up-pa" meaning, "Up, please" when she wanted one of us to pick her up. One year after bringing her home, she could say 48 words and said "Up-pee" for "Up please".

After being home for over two years, Kimi's language has increased quite a bit.  She can say three- to four-word sentences, and a couple of six-word sentences, when she wants to.  However, we are still working on her enunciation.  She has begun putting the end sounds on words and can say some blends like "bl".  Kimi's current speech therapist has said Kimi will probably require speech therapy until about age 12, and should eventually be able to speak normally - something we hoped for in China, but did not know with certainty.

I have attached a short video showing how Kimi is talking now.  This video doesn't show the extent she is talking, but gives you some idea as to where she is, developmentally and speech-wise.