Cochlear Implant

We chose the cochlear implant for our son. From his appointment on Dec. 1st to his latest appointment Dec. 10th, our son's hearing has deteriorated. He no longer has a "better" ear. The news was disappointing. His right ear has gone from severely deaf to profound. It is very saddening. I had noticed the last few days that I was unable to get his attention when he had his hearing aids off. Before I could at least yell or clap my hands close to him to get his attention so he could lip read what I was saying to him. (I recently have learned that it is politically correct to call it "speech reading".)
After much thought and research we have decided to go with the cochlear implant. At first we thought that the hearing aids would help get him up to conversational speech level, but now with the latest tests we know that if we want to continue him as an oral deaf that the cochlear implant is the only way to go. So now we have a surgery date of Jan. 2nd, 2009. Two weeks after surgery we will go back to Arkansas Children's Hospital to check his incision and then back the following week to turn on his implant. I am most nervous about the latter because of the reactions children have when it is turned on. Most children cry because the sound is not normal and they are scared by it. It is a digital sound that the ENT says will be similar to a Mickey Mouse voice. All sounds I am told will be high pitched and there will be a several month adjustment period. Please pray for my son.

What to do next.



That was the first thing I thought of when my husband and I were told our son was deaf. They told us he was severely deaf in his right ear and profoundly deaf in the left. Up to this point I thought you were either hard of hearing or completely deaf. I had no idea that there were different degrees of "deaf". Neither my husband nor I have any family members that are deaf, or at least not anyone under the age of 90. And unless we want to have genetic testing done, there isn't really a way to know if it is inherited. At this point in our lives we are fine with having only one child so I don't feel any need to have the testing done. This could be from the head trauma he suffered when he was around four months old. But really there is no way to know for sure. His head trauma did cause him to suffer from BPPV -Benign Proximal Positional Vertigo. Any time he has hit his head from that point his eyes dart from left to right rapidly and he begins to vomit. This lasts up to 24 hours. Luckily it has been over a year since he has had an episode. I pray everyday that he is over his BPPV. I seem to be rambling.

So now what to do. How would you like for your son to communicate? This was the question we were sent home from the hospital with. How to handle the means of communication my husband and I feel will be the best for our son. It is amazing that only the day before we went to Children's Hospital for testing I was stuck in a dilemma of what type of Halloween cupcakes I was going to bake for his school party, and the next day I am to decide which means of communication he is going to use to communicate with the world for the rest of his life. So off I went, I did my research online as well as read up on material the hospital gave me. And based on the lifestyle we live and that our son was hearing at one point, we have chosen to continue him as oral. Now our next hurdle.....hearing aids or implants?

My Son is Deaf.

My beautiful, vibrant four year old is deaf. He was just diagnosed this past October. He has been in speech therapy since he turned two and I just knew there was something not quite right. So last year I took him to an audiologist with concerns that I was having to yell to get his attention. After the sound field test was complete, the audiologist informed me that his hearing was normal. I have spent the last year and five months trying to convinced myself that he was hearing me. "He's just ignoring me", I'd tell myself over and over. In October I was fed up. I took him in for another test and was told he failed the test. We then went to the Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock. October 17th is a day I will never forget. It's the day I heard the words "your son is deaf".
I wept. I smiled. "That's all?" I thought, "How wonderful!" You see, these were not tears of sorrow. Not tears of self pity. They were tears of relief. I was validated. I wasn't crazy. My son was not choosing to ignore me. He never heard me.