Well, It looks like we are going. The trip to Ella\u2019s next operation starts tomorrow. The actual surgery will take place on Tuesday. I wish I was less ambivalent about the whole business. I wish the previous operations were a resounding success. That would make placing Ella in a new situation of pain, disorientation and inevitably some regression in the progress she has been making, a bit easier to justify. Does she look a bit better as a result of the previous operations? I would like to think so, but it isn\u2019t conclusive. Also the loss of expressiveness of the right side of her face almost counters the benefits of the more symmetrical structure. Anyway\u2026 The plan is to drive there through some places that might make the whole experience not totally surgically inclined, such as Sesame Place, in Pennsylvania, and visiting Becky and Irad in Ohio. Ella has been showing new progress in several areas recently. I hate to put a dent in this trend. Her walking is improved. We now use a bandana to support her. She holds one end, we hold the other. The theory (Kim from Ella\u2019s School is the origin of this) is that one day, down the line, we will be able to let go of our end and Ella will still have the security of the bandana in her hand. It is something like the cartoons where the character runs off the cliff but doesn\u2019t fall so long as he doesn\u2019t notice there is nothing below. Ella has almost consistently been pairing her \u2018I Want\u2019 with various (sometimes recognizable) words, such as Abba (which I happen to remember). She is using her communications board more to let us know what activity she is interested in, and in general makes it clearer what she wants. A week or so ago she blew me away when I was playing a puzzle with her. She has this puzzle that has animals in it, when one is removed or put back the puzzle makes the sound for that animal (moo for cow). Well, as she was randomly taking them out and putting them back, I asked her, \u2018where is the cow\u2019? She took it out with no hesitation, the right one. Coincidence, I thought. I tried for the cat\u2026. Success. Dog\u2026 Ditto. What??? Yes. She knows all of them (about twelve) . We did them all. She gets them right. Both in Hebrew and English. I tried again a few days later and the same. Strangely Michelle didn\u2019t have that success (I mean with Ella. Michelle knows where the cow is\u2026). We\u2019ve noticed that about Ella, she doesn\u2019t like to perform. But she knows them! She gets them right!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, It looks like we are going. The trip to Ella\u2019s next operation starts tomorrow. The actual surgery will take place on Tuesday. I wish I was less ambivalent about the whole business. I wish the previous operations were a resounding success. That would make placing Ella in a new situation of pain, disorientation and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ellaslog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4PM2I-pT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1606,"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605\/revisions\/1606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rozinblog.com\/ella\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}