2009!

Happy New Year everyone!

David is off working in Maine, while I spend my weeks here in CT being the taxi driver for the kids.

He's continuing to progress well. He has lots of quiet to work on speech and listening.

Santa brought him a pretty blue iPod nano for Christmas as well as a book, and a giftcard for iTunes that was enough to buy said book as an audio version. He's been listening to the book and music on the iPod.

Santa must have known that an iPod would be a fantastic therapy tool :) Smart man that Santa.

Not much else to report. He has another mapping session scheduled for February. I'm going to try and get a sitter for the kids so that I can go with him. He'll pick back up on speech therapy when he's home.

Now, about that other ear...

An Update. Finally!

Ok, some numbers for you :)

At one month post activation, David scored 76% correct on 10 recorded HINT sentences. At 6 months, he is up to 95%!!!!

At one month post activation, David scored 44% on his CNC single word list with auditory clues only. At 6 months, he is up to 86%!

We had a noise situation recently. My sister got married about a month ago, and the reception was L.O.U.D.

David has a program that helps him in noisy situations. I swear he did better than I did! He was able to talk to people and hear them with relative ease!

People have been telling me that he seems so much more relaxed now that he has the implant. He doesn't have a look of concentration on his face all the time, he's smiling more, talking more, hearing more things correctly. I rarely have to repeat myself now!

Now, for those of you reading...What kind of phone works well with the implant? Our cordless isn't working for his hearing aid OR his implant!

It's been 6 months

David goes in today for an audiogram and mapping. I can't wait to see how he does.

I find myself getting impatient these days. I've gotten SO used to how well David hears with his implant, that when he has it off I get easily irritated. This is something that I need to work on in a major way. I honestly don't even notice how well he's doing anymore until he takes it off. Technology is a wonderful thing. The CI has made communication SO much easier for us.

David continues to do extremely well in his speech therapy too. He gets mad at me sometimes when I do my job and correct, or remind him to open his mouth when he talks, but he knows that I'm just working with him to help him come along.

I'll update when we get the results from today's testing.

September Update

I REALLY should update this thing more often. Life is crazy!

Things are going very well with his implant. He started working on speech therapy with just the implant, not using his hearing aid in the other ear.

He still uses his HA at work, but takes it off when he gets home to practice more.

I'm constantly amazed at how his speech is coming along. He still has some trouble with his R's, but he's correcting 28 odd years of speech problems. It's going to take time.

His audiologist and ENT have both said that he can and probably should get his left ear done as well. Dr. Cameron (ENT) said just give him a call when he's ready to get the ball rolling on the next surgery!

He has 6 month testing coming up on soon to see how he's doing with the implant and then a re-map.

I love this

I don't have much to say today, but I LOVE this :)

Snap, Crackle, and Pop

David found out today that Rice Krispies really DO Snap, Crackle, and Pop when you add milk.

He commented to me today after a co-worker ate them for breakfast.

THAT is a CI moment for sure!

Simply Exhausting

I debated posting today, but this sight pushed me over the edge.

I went with David to speech last week. It was exhausting for him. He concentrates so hard and works very hard to make sure that he's forming the words correctly, and hearing them correctly. It's really shining a light on this whole process that I didn't fully understand. Never in a million years did I think that 45 minutes of therapy could make a 28 year old man so worn out. (Granted, he does work a very physical job for 8 hours before going...)

This past week I've been super impressed by David. He's worked harder than I've noticed before. Maybe something clicked, or maybe it was because I was finally understanding a little bit of what he's going through.

David has been self correcting this week. Normally, if he mispronounces a word, or letter, it is my job to repeat the word slowly and correctly, then have him mimic what I did. This past week David would say something, then correct HIMSELF repeating the word slowly and differently than he had before and looking to me to see if it was right. If it was he repeated it several more times so that he could feel, and hear the correct sound of the word. If it wasn't I would correct him and he would soak that in the same way.

It's lots of little things like the self correcting that I'm starting to notice on a day to day basis. I've also noticed that he's reading to Jaime a lot more these days. Taking time to make sure every word is read correctly. Jaime LOVES the attention, and is addicted to books. Reading bedtime stories has turned into a wonderful bonding and learning time for father and son to have together.

Once again I find myself bursting with pride at how well David is adjusting to his cochlear implant. Of course there are ups and downs, but at this point it has been far more ups, and it's making a huge impact on our family's daily life.