Two Weeks Post Activation

It has already been two weeks since Logan's initial stimulation and we are thrilled with what we are seeing so far. It is by no means a night and day difference from the hearing aids he wore previously.  He is still getting used to his new ears and starting to figure out how to listen with them, but when he responds (or appears to respond) to things we had not previously seen, it brings so much joy to my heart.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Ling 6 sounds, these are familiar sounds that broadly represent the speech spectrum and include low, medium and high frequency sounds (ah / ee / oo /mm / sss / sh) and can be used to test whether a child has access to the full spectrum of speech sounds in a very low tech way.  With hearing aids, Logan had very limited access to these sounds. We are still unsure of what he has access to with his implants, since we will still be fine tuning his programs and we have not had a hearing test with them yet.  However, I was thrilled when Logan responded to the "sh" sound when I was working with him the other day.  He has never been able to do that, as far as I can remember.

The other thing that we have been so excited about over the last few days is that he is starting to respond to music!  We love listening to music and we are so happy that hopefully our son is now able to hear some of it.

Jasmine was watching Madagascar yesterday and the part with the Bee Gee's song came on. Logan was not looking at the TV at the time, but he started bobbing up and down as he was cruising the sofa. He had no visual cues that would tell him to start dancing so I know he heard the music!  We are so excited to see what other great things he will be doing in the near future.

                                          Logan Dancing

Counting Down!

There are a number of reasons that I am counting down the five days until Logan's surgery.  I am anxious to get this procedure over with and stop worrying about it. And of course, I can't wait to start this new chapter in his life.

However, another unexpected reason I am counting down is that I just can't wait to be done with these hearing aids! Yes, I know the cochlear implants will be a whole new set of headaches, but I am so done losing pieces of these hearing aids.

I hosted an in house playdate for the toddler playgroup I am a member of this morning. We had 11 toddlers, 3 infants, and of course, their moms here this morning.  It was a blast as usual.  But once everyone was gone for about 20 minutes, I noticed that Logan's processor from his left hearing aid was missing. The earhook and earmold were still there, so the processor managed to get unscrewed from the rest of it. I had to tear up the playroom again looking for it, but came up empty. I checked downstairs, in his hamper, and upstairs again and couldn't find it.

During all this, I was battling with Jasmine to stay in her room and take her nap. When I finally got her to stay in her room, I went back downstairs and started crawling on the floor everywhere Logan had been.  Unbelievably, I found it in the middle of the living room floor.  I was so relieved! The whole time I was looking for it I kept thinking I can't believe we made it this far without having to pay the deductible for a lost hearing aid and here we are, less than a week before surgery, and we've finally lost one.

I am so glad I found it and I am so ready to turn them back in to Sunshine Cottage.

Logan is 1!

With the end of Logan's first birthday here, I have been thinking about this last year quite a bit. I remember the anticipation I felt as I waited out those last few weeks of pregnancy. I remember my contractions getting regular late in the evening and finally calling my mom to come stay with Jasmine. I remember the joy we felt when we first saw him and held him. I remember the worry we felt when he failed his newborn hearing screening.

Waiting those weeks for the next hearing test was torture. And when the audiologist confirmed that he had significant hearing loss, I remember my world crashing down. I wondered if I would ever hear him speak and what life would be like for him. I am so happy to say that today, as a one year old, he says mama, dada and hi consistently, and it is music to my ears!

I also remember the day when we went in to get his first set of hearing aids. I can still see the smile on his face when he actually heard us talk to him for the first time! And now that he has tried out the hearing aids, gotten more powerful hearing aids to try, and is scheduled to get his cochlear implants in less than a month, I am so excited to see his reaction when they get turned on.

I remember meeting his teachers (from Sunshine Cottage and the Early Intervention program) and his audiologist and feeling apprehensive and nervous about the process we were going to be going through. But now these women are like our extended family and we love them so much! I can't express how much they have helped, not only Logan, but me as well.

When I took him to his 6 month checkup, I shared my concern with his pediatrician about his upper body strength. He just seemed too wobbly for his age. She agreed and referred him for a physical therapy evaluation. It took a lot of work to get him to sit up unassisted and I don't think he actually did it consistently until he was 9 months old. But since he reached that milestone he has been progressing at warp speed! In these 3 months, he started rolling to get everywhere, started doing a commando crawl, transitioned to a traditional crawl and then a bear crawl, and has been pulling up and cruising on anything and everything he can get his hands on! He will be walking before we know it.

This next year is going to be great for him and our family!