First Glimpse into sound

There has been a recent video circulated on the facebook that shows when a child's cochlear implant has been turned on.

Most of the comments on youtube and facebook are 'WOW' and "Amazing!" The cochlear implant is on my top five list of "best things we have ever done for Andrew." But I do remember the day he was implanted. I remember feeling...nothing. Yep...nothing. I wasn't 'numb' or sad or excited or happy. And I wasn't on Prozac. The audiologist said, "that's good that you don't feel too excited. Don't have expectations because it will be a process." And she was right. Because of Andrew's other issues, it has been quite a marathon. Most kids who are implanted young can be mainstreamed from the get-go with intensive Auditory Verbal Therapy. We did do AVT and it payed off..eventually.

I guess I wanted to post this for parents out there who have gotten their child an implant and they didn't get a reaction or progress right away. Often audiologist do things slowly so as to not startle a child. And if a child doesn't take off right away, that is OK too. With Andrew it was many years before we knew he was truly understand and a few more before we could understand him. Don't give up! Adults and older implanted children will also respond differently but there are still so many benefits.

I leave you with a few pictures. First we have our family the day Andrew was activated.

A few years after that we went to Chicago to be part of a volunteer training. My sissy went along to help us.

And finally a snippet of a video we shot today while Andrew was acting on stage at a children's museum. A few things to keep in mind. First, it was very noisy and he heard what I said from a few feet away. (I wasn't yelling. I was just next to the camera.) In addition his speech is quite clear. I kept trying to get him to do the whole speech over for the camera. He was trying to tell everyone about Jesus. I just love my kid.