Her First Week Hearing

As we loaded up the car last Thursday to go have Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family we had all the more reason to be thankful. It had been only 24 hours before that we sat in the audiologists office as  they hooked SJ up to the device that allowed her to hear. 

 This audiogram shows where her hearing was the last time she was tested (pink), where her hearing is now (green), and the yellow shows what speech sounds she can hear. She's going from barely being able to hear a helicopter at 100 decibels to currently being able to hear a conversation at 30 decibels!  

This lovely lady is SJ's audiologist as she was working on SJ's first mapping. 

Mapping is a way of tweaking and setting the sounds that she will hear through her processor. She still isn't receiving all the benefits of the implant, but she will gradually be given a little more sound over the next few months in order to allow her brain to adjust to it. The little arrow in the photo above is pointing to the case that her processor goes in, and the bigger arrow is pointing to the bag that we were sent home with. That huge bag is full of all kinds of accessories (including the remote control for the processor), wires, and booklets full of information all for this one little piece of equipment! I'll admit, it is a scary amount of responsibility. Thank God that I am not alone in all of this. 

Normally the sound processor would hang over SJ's right ear a lot like a hearing aid, but since SJ is still healing from the surgery she had three weeks ago we are just using her pony tail as a way of keeping it on. The coil is the transmitter that has a magnet on it which attaches to the magnet that is under her skin. Yes, it is weird. I still haven't become totally comfortable with knowing exactly where it is located on her head. Once that magnet is close to the right spot you can feel it stick. It attaches just like a refrigerator magnet. 

Even though we know that SJ is hearing significantly more than she ever has, she still isn't responding to much. Our speech just sounds like a bunch of garble to her right now and everything from music to a dog bark has no meaning at all. One of the books that I read says this regarding the activation of the CI 

"Parents must realize that the surgeon's job has ended and the long term work of helping their child listen with the implant has just begun. Parents who abdicate their responsibilities at home, in light of what they believe is a medical miracle, will be disappointed with the outcome." 

In other words, this isn't a quick fix where she now hears and is just like any other child. We have a lot of work ahead of us. 

Right now it is projected that it should take about 3 years just to get SJ caught up. That means by the time she is 7 hopefully she will be mainstreamed. Until then we are currently working on getting her enrolled at a deaf school (which is another huge ordeal I'll have to expound on in another post). From what I can tell the cochlear implant journey so far has been a lot like parenting; it's a big responsibility that is very exciting, but can also be exhausting. With both parenting and the cochlear implant I am 100% committed and look forward to seeing what is in store. Thank you so much for all of the prayers and to everyone who has been there to cheer us on as we venture into the unknown, believing that God has big plans for this precious child. 

                                     

This is one of the finest things I can think of, so I am linking up with Finer Things Friday over at Amy's Finer Things!