The most beautiful sound..... my babies cry!

Well Wednesday Emerson got a speaking valve put on her trach for the first time. For those of you who don't know what a speaking valve is, it is an attachment put onto her trach that allows air into the trach but Emerson has to do the work to push the air out up through her vocal cords and through her mouth and nose. So it is a big step for anyone with a trach because it is one step closer to her not having to keep the trach in forever! So back to the good news. Mrs. Verlencia told us before we even began with trying out the speaking valve that she would not like it right away because it was new and uncomfortable at first. So it was time to put the valve on, Emerson held her breath and her O2 dropped to 85% and she had it on for 2 min. Off it came. Mrs. Verlencia let Emerson catch her breath and relax and put it on again. Emerson kept it on for 20 min and the lowest her O2 level got was 95%! WooHoo! The most beautiful sound ever........ my babies cry! We haven't heard her voice in shoot over three weeks all we could ever see is her face "crying" but never hear her. Our first trial couldn't have gone any more perfect.

In occupational thearpy her left hand which is her bad hand got even higher in extention. She also sees her trying to follow lights even better now and it's less delayed. In physical thearpy Emerson laid on her belly for the first time in 7 weeks since we have been here, and she did ok. 

Emerson also had botox today, yes botox! The botox is used to relax her muscles to relax her muscle tone. Initally she was supposed to get it in her R & L forearm muscle and calf muscle BUT Emerson not only got it there but she also got it in her R & L latissimus dorsi, her paraspinal, and R & L biceps. So all in all my baby got stuck 12 times! And my Emmy has been botoxed up. lol ;) They say we won't start to see a difference in her tone until 5-7 days! So we can't wait. 


Since Emerson got her botox around 2ish on Wednesday her afternoon thearpy went on as scheduled, very mild, but it went well! :)       

My Family!