Shannon Update Surgery

Today is mine and Steve's eight year anniversary and we were given an incredible gift. A surgery date for Shannon's cochlear implant! We met with the surgeon yesterday and were told we would receive a call today with an exact surgery date since they had to match up a couple different schedules to make it happen. The doctor's nurse is named, Sherry and when she called Primary Children's to find a date they didn't have anything open that matched Dr. Gurgel's schedule. We were looking at sometime next year for her surgery. Sherry said to the people at Primary's what date can you give me? The lady said the only time that was left this year was December 28th she told the lady that she would take it and then talk to the doctor because he would be on vacation that day. When Sherry spoke with Dr. Gurgel and said the only time left this year was the 28th he said, "Let's do it." His nurse said I understand if it was cancer and you needed to remove a tumor but it's just for a cochlear and you are on vacation. The doctor said, "Sherry, this little girl is almost two, I don't want her to wait any longer." How amazing is he?! She will have to stay for 24 hours after her surgery and then it will be about three weeks until they activate the cochlear to give her time to heal. The surgery itself takes about 2 1/2 hours. Hopefully in about 5 months are so Shannon will say her first words! It hasn't hit me yet that this is really going to happen. Is Shannon really going to learn to talk, is she really going to hear me? I can't wait! I have a lot that I want to update but I was so excited for this news I had to hurry and post this.