Nonetheless, it's been said in this house about a bazzillion times today.
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| Waiting on Dr. Katie in the Heuser Hearing waiting room. |
Ellie Kate got her cochlear implant on her right side activated today. She is turned on and fully operational! Well, I say fully...but more like she can hear some loud noises and it's our job to make sure we are super loud to teach her what sounds are.
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| YAY!! New toys to play with!!! |
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| Wait......what's about to happen??? |
She did not at all respond like I thought she would. I thought we would at least get a whine or a slight cry...
Nothing.
In the first 30 seconds, she basically ignored us, then got really still and cut her eyes at me as if to say, "What's going on here??"
Here's the first 4ish minutes of EK's hearing career. Me banging legos together, us yelling her name....anything...anything....?? She was hearing us. You just have to watch closely for indications. Please ignore the rednecks talking and laughing in the background. (And please don't feel obligated to watch all of this. Really. It's more for the grandparents.)
There was more of this and more of her just hanging out tolerating us trying to get her to miraculously look up and say, "Mom. I got it. I can hear you. Just stop with the banging already."
That never did happen...
Then she heard us laugh. I'm certain of that. (We got a couple of giggles out of her in response around 24 seconds.)
We took them off and got schooled in the world of cochlear implants. Sister has more accessories now than any girl should really need! A whole briefcase, in fact, of CI paraphernalia and goodies to make life easier. She even has her own dehumidifier and remote now. Seriously. She definitely jumped all of us in the technology realm today.
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| I'll just wait patiently while you guys talk. |
After we were done with our lesson, we put it back on her and got a little more of a response the second time around. Almost like she was nervous. And she needed her Mommy. Hey, I was fine with that.
More banging the Legos. And she kept taking them away as if to tell me to stop. And when I didn't...she just chucked them (around 1:20). And I'm her mom and I think she's fantastically great and does hilarious things. So this was funny to me.
So the rest of the day...she's keeping them on fairly well. The bigger problem is that her ear is so tiny and the CI is so huge. So they tend to slip off if bumped or if she gets a little bouncy, which happens when we are excited. We've said her name a half a million times today. And she has ignored us almost every single time, but she's just practicing being a teenager.
Really, I just have to remind myself that she has newborn ears today. Really less than newborn, if that's even possible, because a newborn would have had 9 months of in utero hearing that she hasn't had either. She has a lot of learning to listen and then learning to talk ahead of her. But we and her therapists are very optimistic that she'll move through these milestones fairly quickly.
She's a smart little cookie. And I don't say that just cause I'm her mom. She really is.
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| I'm gonna need a drink after all that. Gimme the full fat vitamin D stuff. |
Speaking of cookies, we got some to celebrate her hearing birthday, but I had to eat EK's because she had to go to sleep. In true toddler fashion, she chose to skip her nap yesterday. And missed it today because we were getting our ears turned on.
We were lucky to make it through dinner all the way to 7:15pm. But during all the meltdowns, she still kept the CI on. Which is encouraging to me to know that even when ticked off, she'll leave it on. Even left it on in the car on the way home even though she took off her socks, shoes, bow and tried to get her shirt off.
We are gonna learn to hear.
Even if we do it naked.
Happy Birthday, EK's ears!!!
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