A Quick Life Update

Hey y’all! Happy OFFICIAL Christmas season! Is anyone else as excited as I am that it is 110%, undeniably okay with the world to celebrate Christmas now?! Being the super-fan that I am, I’ve been listening to Christmas music since August (driving Price slightly insane, but I know he secretly loves it) and have been slowly but surely putting out decorations since the week before Halloween. Ha! But that is neither here nor there 😉

I wanted to hop on here and follow up with the promise I made in this post to share a couple of life updates. In the midst of uncertainty and sadness, we have seen how our faithful, promise-keeping God has lined our home and our thoughts with silver and gold and given us this unmistakable peace and hope that truly can only come from HIM!

Firstly, before we left the hospital to come home with our sweet and perfect Dempsey, we found out that there was a pretty good possibility he would be hearing-impaired. The hospital now does hearing tests on infants before they go home. Dempsey failed his first one, so he re-tested right before we were discharged and failed that one too. 🙁 Silver lining: Sweet baby looked SO CUTE while getting his hospital hearing tests, with little ear thingies stuffed up under his little hospital hat!

We got an appointment with an audiologist to do another hearing test when he was ten days old. The news was confirmed that Dempsey does have hearing loss. The audiologist called it Mixed Mild Hearing Loss, meaning he has two forms of impairment: conductive hearing loss as well as sensorineural hearing loss. One is more severe than the other, but thankfully we have almost 100% confirmed with both our audiologist and our ENT (who we saw on day 12) that whatever is causing this impairment IS fixable! Praise the Lord! At least one (hopefully both) of the nerves required to have any hearing at all is intact. It is our prayer that through a little more testing, we find that both are intact. We have another hearing test the first week in January, then will go from there depending on what we find!

Both doctors that we’ve seen so far have stated that there is a chance that things could self-correct as D gets older. On the flip side, they could also get worse. And the real mystery right now is what is causing each of these losses. So we’ve done a couple of tests, the results of which we are still awaiting, to try to rule out a few causes. So we are taking this thing day by day!

Another silver lining: Wilson and Lily Ryan don’t really seem to grasp the concept of “inside voices” so their loudness has not bothered their sweet little nap-happy baby bro at all! And with construction happening, nail guns and all those other fun loud sounds are no big thang!

Thankfully, medicine has come so far that there are multiple ways to get Dempsey fixed up (once we have a cause) so he won’t miss a beat as far as development and learning. We are so thankful for the sweet doctors and nurses who have walked us through this journey so far. We are only at the beginning right now, but we are so hopeful that everything for our sweet little man will be juuuust fine!

(For anyone reading this who knows anything about ears, I’m sure I’m messing up some details… A lot of the information we have been given is over my head. Which is why I’m thankful for a super smart husband who gets it all! I had to record him explaining what Dempsey’s deal is to send to friends and family because I would have completely butchered all the terms and facts. So if you have any questions about our findings so far, Price is your man!) 😉

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So the day after our appointment with the audiologist, our beagles got out, as they tend to do about every month or so. They’ve done this for YEARS. They are sneaky and bold and don’t follow rules, so they are always looking for ways to escape so they can go on a good ol beagle run! And for years, they always come back home. Well, week before last, the norm changed and Delta, our girl beagle and twin to brother Dover, didn’t make it home. I’m crying as I type this!

Price was coming home from work and called me to ask if the beagles were home. I told him no, that they had gotten out earlier that day and had not come home yet. Price told me he saw a black dog who had been hit on the side of the highway, which is why he called me, so he turned around to make sure it wasn’t one of ours, and sure enough, it was our sweet Delta girl. I feel certain she was chasing an animal and was trying to get across the highway to follow it, but since it was dark outside, her black coat worked against her and a car just didn’t see her. I felt so bad that Price had to find her like that! But at the same time, I’m glad we know what happened to her and don’t have to sit here wondering where she is.

Price brought her home and we buried her by a tree in our yard. I’m working on getting a little head stone made for her. We miss her terribly, despite the fact that we often complained about her intense barking… Girlfriend had a big voice, and she was an advocate for all the Donahoo dogs. If they wanted something, Delta would let it be known. But oh, was she sweet. She loved just snuggling up next to one of us or one of the other dogs just to be close to somebody. She was the queen of our home, so it’s fitting that her full name was Delta Queen Donahoo! She was one of a kind and is truly missed by all of us. The kids ask about her every day. It’s been hard explaining to them what happened to her, but they insist on knowing.

Delta would have been ten years old this coming May, so she had nearly a decade of time on the earth, leaving us with plenty of memories! This picture was her on her 8th birthday. I’m insane and threw they a little party with cute puppy treats and puppy cupcakes and all that fun stuff… Now I’m so glad I did! (You can see more pics from that day here.) Rest in peace, sweet Delta girl.

In all this grayness, and all in the same week no less, there really has been brightness and joy streaming through. We are so thankful. And I am SO THANKFUL for Price. He’s been the best friend and partner through all the suck. I feel closer to him than ever before these days, and all the credit for that goes straight up! So thankful that God put me with a dude who could handle the intense emotions I’ve had going on here these past few weeks. (Just imagine a woman who has all these postpartum hormones bouncing every direction, combined with a woman who is processing that her child is partially deaf, combined with a woman who just lost one of the sweetest dogs ever. That’s what Price has had to deal with!) I, in turn, have been trying to be supportive of him and thank him for being so supportive of me, and it’s just a lot going on over here!

But the bottom line is,

God has a plan.

His plan is perfect.

He has given us peace surpassing all understanding.

It will all be good.

It’s Christmas!!!

So there’s my “quick” little update that ended up not being so quick! Sorry bout that! 😉 Thank you for stopping in today. And thank you to those who have been praying for and with us. We SO appreciate it. You have no idea! So thankful for all the wonderful blessings and happy linings that we continue to see every hour of every day! Love y’all lots, and…

M E R R Y . C H R I S T M A S ! ! !