2 Funny Stories and an Implant Date....

First of all, Claire's surgery for her second implant is scheduled for August 11th. Keep her in your prayers.

A couple of weeks ago, Claire, Max, Stephanie and I were eating at a local "meat and three" called the City Cafe. As usual, Claire finished her meal before everyone else and decided that she wanted to wander around the restaurant. This was fine, because the City Cafe is very casual and most of the customers enjoyed watching Claire. However, not paying much attention to what Claire was doing, I did not notice that she had grabbed the check for our meal off the table. This wouldn't have been a big deal, but the next thing I knew, I saw that Claire had given our check to an innocent elderly gentleman a few tables down! Being the generous person that I am, I let him pay our tab. (just kidding)

We celebrated Max's 7th birthday this past Saturday at Crockett Park. While trying to take care of Max's guests, I noticed that he and a couple of his friends had gathered around a light post and were staring at the ground. Max saw me looking at them and called for me to come over. All of the kids pointed at the ground showing me what they thought to be a gravestone. Max insisted that a person was buried at this spot and informed me that the name of the deceased was "Electric". While this was some good reading on Max's part, I decided that I really need to teach him the difference between a gravestone and an in-ground electricity box!

See ya...

Implant # 2 Approved

The process of Claire getting a second implant seems to be going smoothly thus far. The staff at Vanderbilt gave her the thumbs up a couple of weeks ago and we received an approval from our insurance company yesterday. I don't want to make this a political blog, but our health care system here in the United States is the best in the world. I love our insurance company, I love Vanderbilt and I love Claire's medical staff. I'll let it go at that.

Claire also started occupational therapy last week. Evidently she isn't using some of her muscle groups properly, which may be affecting her speech. Her therapist thinks that Claire can catch up with around 6 months of therapy. They worked on "licking" the other day. I wondered why Claire came up to me and started licking my arm. Luckily Stephanie was there to explain it to me. I thought maybe I just smelled like ice cream!

Max is well in to his sports camp season. He completed Vandy's soccer camp a couple of weeks ago and finished Vandy's baseball camp today (in the scorching heat!). He earned a special jersey at both camps and I'm pretty sure he was the "favorite" camper at both places! I'm so proud of that little guy. He makes me feel 10 feet tall! By the way, everything that Vandy does is A+ excellent. I recommend getting your kids involved there as much as you can. Thanks to all of the coaches.

We also spoke to Edie Gibson of Advanced Bionics this week about getting involved with their mentoring program. I've never though of myself as the mentoring type, but Stephanie and I are happy to help in any way possible. Advanced Bionics has been very good to us and I have no problem recommending them to others.

Talk to you next time.