HAPPY HAPPY DAY 30 ~Fish OIl Study!

Today is day 30......  Today Selah "spoke" .....

Now you have to understand that Selah was "non verbal" before the accident.  She was considered "non verbal" when she was in Ukraine also.   She seemed to understand some language in English, that is called "receptive language skills" but she could not respond verbally.  Sam is also non verbal but has receptive language skills.  Sarah is non verbal and does not seem to understand any language but we think she knows her name.  Before the accident, Selah seemed to understand "let's eat"  "come here" and that was about it.  If she was thirsty she stuck out her tongue. 

So today Selah's therapist covered her trach and Selah was able to breath through her mouth without getting upset.  She has never done that without trying really hard to breath and getting upset.  Today it seemed not to bother her at all.  Her oxygen stats stayed up at 100% and her heart rate stayed under 100 letting us know that she was ok. 

Then she started making noises....it was a sorta groaning/whinny noise!  The first time she did it, she was quite loud and startled herself.  Then she grew more used to the sound. 

Her therapist was also able to work with her this afternoon so I could see it and she did it several times:)  She is making the effort to make the sound!  But the very BEST thing is that she is tolerating her trach being covered & she is doing breathing through her mouth.   The therapist Ms Meg, would let her breath through the trach and then blow out of her mouth.  Sometimes she would have Selah breath in through her mouth also!  This is just amazing to see her work and not be upset about it! 

This afternoon I was able to hear her:)  It is the beginning of her getting her babbling sounds back!  We are so thrilled!!!  So where she never had any real language, she had some real sounds that she made and we understood them for the most part.  She had happy sounds and grumpy sounds and sad sounds.   We are looking forward to hearing them again!!

The sounds she made today came mostly from her throat.  BUT she began to imitate me as I was leaning over in her face making some of her sounds back to her.  We saw her starting to move the muscles around her mouth!  It seemed like to me she was trying to imitate what I was doing and she was trying to "banter back and to" with me, like she used to do with us.  I believe if Jon would have been here she would have done it more.  She really responds to him!

There had been concern that her vocal cords were paralyzed but thankfully we know now 100% that that is not the case:)


So you might wonder how it is to have three children that are basically non verbal....since we were used to Sam, it was not a big leap when we got the girls.  We've just learned to watch them closer for clues of what they want, it is like having a one year old, I guess you could say.  Sam will go to the fridge if he wants a drink or to the high chair to eat.  Selah had learned the same from Sam:)   Sarah is much more like a baby, we watch her for clues to what she wants but she is such an easy happy child, it is not hard to take care of her at all. 

Having non verbal children is not hard to me.  If you would have ask me 10 years ago, I'm sure it would have petrified me but it's really not that hard.  Of course we always hope for words but it's not what we focus on.  We are thrilled that Sam has learned to understand what we say like "let's go get a bath" or "let's ear"   We hope Sarah will in time understand more and certainly we hope that Selah will come back to where she was and start to understand more also. 

Also I have to add Selah had significant development delays before the accident.  The thought is she probably had institutional autism due to what we can share with the doctors and therapists here.  She also never heard English until we came in April, so she has alot of things that she has to work through including the accident....

I had forgotten to add something the other day about the xray of her feet, they found that her bones are quite brittle and it is obvious that she has been very malnourished at some time in the past....poor baby girl has gone through so much in her short life.


We had a slight change in plans on where we are staying in Jax.  The family that offered the house for us to stay, now has a contract on it....we are glad for them!  The church still is extremely involved with us and has gone back to the original plan of us staying at an extended stay Marriott, close to the rehab!   It may be possible for people to give Marriott points towards a night stay for us and if so I will post about it.  We are excited about the exercise room and pool, it will be good exercise for all of us.  We feel extremely humbled and blessed by all that has been done and the love shown to our family!!!

So we are a grateful family tonight. Selah has a long way to go but she has come a long way. We don't know how far she will go but we are so happy that she knows we are here, she responds to us, she is NOT just a body in a bed any longer!    Please continue to pray for her...she still has a long way to go!