Surgery is Scheduled!

Originally, we were going to do one implant when Logan turns 1 and the second implant about 6 months later. However, when we went to see his ENT recently, he said that Logan's hearing test results were so much on the fence that you could make an argument to do one at a time or to do them both together. We told him that our preference would be to do them both at once and only have to go through the surgery once. So he said he would talk to Logan's audiologist, and if she was on board, we would do them both when he turns 1.

Well, we heard from the doctor's office last week to schedule his surgery and they scheduled bilateral implants (both ears)! The downside is that since the surgery is twice as long we could not get it scheduled right after his birthday at the beginning of July like we had hoped. So now he is scheduled to go in for his implants on July 25^th. Here's hoping there is a cancellation so we can get in before then!

We are so excited to get his new “ears” and to begin his therapy for this. I know his wonderful teachers are excited to see how he does as well.

For those of you that don't know, this is what he will be wearing:

Making Progress

For those of you that don't know, Logan has been in physical therapy 3 times a month for the last 4 months or so. At his 6 month checkup, I mentioned to his pediatrician that he was still a little wobbly and seemed to be weaker in his upper body in comparison to his lower body. She checked him out and decided to refer him for physical therapy. Developmental delays are common in children with CMV.

When we had our physical therapy evaluation the therapist said he was about 2 months behind which she said is not too bad. For the past 4 months we have been working hard on helping him with his head control, sitting, rolling properly (some of you have seen his acrobatic style rolls), crawling and standing (in addition to learning to listen).

At times I have been discouraged because he seems to be taking so long to reach certain milestones. I realize this is because I am comparing him to Jasmine and how quickly she achieved them. I try to stop myself when I catch myself comparing them, but it is easy to slip back into it.

I have to say that the therapy has really started to pay off over the last month and a half. In this short time he has perfected his sitting, rolling, commando crawling (although he did actually crawl with his belly off the floor today!) and is pulling up on anything and everything he can possibly find. He actually prefers to be standing now and has let go of whatever he is holding thinking he can balance already! I am so proud of him and am so happy to see him finally start taking off and catching up to babies his age. Thanks Denyse, we couldn't have done it without you.

Sound Decision

We met with Logan's audiologist today to go over the pros and cons of the different implant brands. We had already ruled out one brand, so we had the Med-El and Cochlear Americas to look at. There is really so much to think about since this is something that will be inside his head and it's not like you can just switch it out on a whim.

Originally, we were pretty sure we were going with Med-El since Logan's ENT had suggested it because the internal device has the thinnest profile and the outer device is backwards compatible. We got to look at a sample device and it was very basic. It didn't really have much polish to it. Both brands come with a remote to control various options on the device but theirs was also quite basic and looked more difficult to use.

Once we reviewed the Cochlear Americas device we were sold! This device does everything the Med-El does but it seems like it does it better. Their devices are also backwards compatible, their remote has a screen and some great troubleshooting features, has a sleeker design and has splash protection. Our audiologist shared a story with us about the Cochlear Americas representative who visited the school and talked about how parents tend to be apprehensive about the splash protection, and understandably so! I mean these devices aren't cheap! So to demonstrate, she actually had the device submerged in a fishbowl full of water for over 3 hours and it still worked! This is a big deal to us because both our kids love the water and it is always a shame that we have to take his hearing aids off for him to be in water. The other thing we loved about Cochlear Americas is that they seem to have a lot of integrity as a company. Our audiologist told us that they voluntarily took their latest internal processor off the market and reverted back to their older processor because they saw a trend of processor failure after a few months of use. So instead of waiting for the FDA to force them to take it off the market, they took it off themselves. Advanced Bionics, a company we were not considering, actually has been forced to take their stuff off the market a few times.

We also got to talk to a child that had a Med-El implant and one that had Cochlear Americas. They both spoke very well and it was nice to see how much these implants can help these kids. I can't wait to see how it helps little Logan!

Reflections

I'm here trying to sleep and I keep thinking about another blog I read earlier today about a baby that died due to SIDS.  That has always terrified me. It got me to thinking about Logan and how I am so happy that he is my son, even with all the challenges he will face in his lifetime.

Thinking of this reminded me of our grocery shopping outing earlier this week. I usually go by myself but this time Andrew and the kids came along. Afterwards, we decided it was really a bad idea because the grocery store was packed.

We decided to divide and conquer. Andrew took Jasmine in a shopping cart and I had Logan in another.  While I was trying to find a certain breakfast cereal, I noticed a family of four, though the two kids were much older than mine. Their boy, who was probably 7 or 8, was staring at Logan. Then he started pointed at him and saying "mom, look at that baby with those things on his ears." I heard the mom reply that it was to help him hear.  That was all fine with me, but then the boy kept pointing and staring and practically shouting about Logan to his parents. 

This really infuriated me, especially because his parents didn't correct his behavior and just let him keep being rude!  I really wanted to tell that boy something, or his parents for that matter, but I was so angry about it that I didn't have anything remotely polite to say.  That was this past Sunday and it still gets to me when I think about it.

I know I will need to get used to this since the staring and comments will be more frequent once Logan gets his implants and has the processor stuck on his head. I just need to think about how I want to handle these situations now before I run into them again.