Little One is a toddler. He is cheeky and cuddly, handsome and helpful. He is also deaf.
He won't always be a toddler, I hope he'll always be helpful, but he will always be deaf.
Having had hearing aids since he was three months old, our clever boy was doing great up until last Spring. Then we noticed he wasn't talking anymore. Or responding to his name. Further hearing tests were inconclusive, but we had a good idea what was going on.
To help ease frustration, we all learned a couple of signs while we waited for conclusive testing. He still couldn't hear us, but he could ask for food or a drink. He figured out that we could be led to the things he wanted; the press where we keep crackers, the stairs when he wanted to take a nap. He started smiling again. A lot.
More hearing tests, more questions. We asked for a referral to the cochlear implant team and our audiologist worked late that night to get the letter out straight away.
We worked for weeks to get a vocal 'no' and celebrated like it was a Nobel. We learned more and more signs and Little One figured out how to use these with gestures and facial expressions to 'talk' to us.
The cochlear implant team told us what we already knew. He is now profoundly deaf. As profoundly deaf as can be. Hope that we hadn't realised we still held was extinguished, but mostly the news was a relief. We're not crazy, he's not stupid. And he's a candidate for cochlear implantation.
There is no cure for deafness. But cochlear implants, if successful, can give our gorgeous boy access to sound.* When he takes off his processors at night, when he needs a rest after a particularly hard day of listening, he will be deaf. When he has his processors on, he will be a deaf boy who is listening carefully to digital sounds.
It's an exciting time in our house. We're all learning more and more sign language, which is essential for his developing brain as well as providing a foundation for communication and speech. We're playing important games and reading books and making plans.
And yesterday, we got the call. The Call.
Little One will receive his implants in a matter of weeks. A few weeks after that the processors will be switched on and then the real work will begin. Tuning and adjusting the 22 electrode arrays to provide sound without discomfort, learning how to listen again, building listening stamina and, hopefully, using all of that to develop speech.
It's been a tough few months for our little guy. And he's got a long journey ahead. But he's happy and engaged and just a little bit of a show-off, and that will serve him well. He is, as we have always known, simply perfect.
*For anyone wondering what the difference is between 'hearing' and 'access to sound', this video gives a good approximation
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SpKKYBkJ9Hw
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