Thankful

On the eve of Thanksgiving, I've been thinking about how much we have to be thankful for in our family and in regards to our sweet Logan.  We are truly blessed.

In honor of Thanksgiving day, here are some things I am truly thankful for:

1. My two beautiful children.
2. Their laughter.
3. Their hugs and kisses.
4. My sweet husband and his unconditional love.
5. That he has been able to support our family so that I can stay home with the kids.
6. My mom and the support she gives me.
7. My sister and best friend.
8. Newborn hearing screenings.
9. Hearing aid technology. Although they weren't powerful enough for Logan, they helped lay a solid hearing foundation for him in his first year of life.
10. Cochlear implant technology. It is giving my sweet Logan a chance to be part of the hearing world.
11. Early Childhood Intervention services. The women we work with are so invested in the success of our little boy that they are an extended part of our family.
12. That we live in San Antonio and having my family nearby.
13. That wonderful place called Sunshine Cottage.
14. The strides Logan is making in learning to listen and trying to speak.
15. Extended families in other cities and states.
16. That we are able to send Jasmine to a preschool program a few times a week. Not only does it give me time to work with Logan and do all his appointments, but she is learning so much while she is there.
17. That the virus that caused Logan's hearing loss didn't do more damage because it could have been so much worse.  
18. That Logan is practically running now.
19. For good friends.
20. For our home.
21. For good food and conversation.
22. For good coffee.
23. For playtime with the kids.
24. For being able to reach out to other families who have children with hearing loss and offer support and friendship.
25. Conversations with my 2 1/2 year old Jasmine. She really says the funniest things.
26. The kids' afternoon naps.
27. Toddler messes all around the house. 
28. Naptime and bedtime stories with the kids.
29. Quiet time with Andrew at the end of the day.
30. This past year filled with learning and growing

Walk for Hearing 2012

This weekend we drove out to Houston to participate in the Walk for Hearing 5k.  I wanted to get some shirts made for us but I procrastinated and ended up just making simple signs for our wagon.  I wound up being quite happy about this because we were the only team that had signs and there were many with shirts! We even had someone ask to take a picture of the kids in the wagon because she thought it was so cute.

We had a great time during the walk, got to see many other kids and adults with implants, met a very nice woman who is a Cochlear Americas representative, and even took pictures with Kaci the Koala.

After the walk, we headed down to the beach in Galveston to feed the Seagulls some bread.  Jasmine had a blast throwing bread to them, although she kept throwing whole pieces to them.  Logan, on the other hand, was only interested in eating the bread, once the excitement and giggles wore off.

After the beach, we headed to the Houston Aquarium and had a fun time. Logan really enjoyed watching and laughing at the big fish there. It was a long, tiring weekend but it was well worth the trip.
 

The Latest Happenings

It's been about a month since I last updated this blog. We have been very busy working on listening with Logan's deaf education teachers and his walking with his physical therapist.   I am happy to say that he is now taking 5-7 unassisted steps at a time. He does this all day long but has not been able to go further than that yet.  I attribute it to his impatience and wanting to get everywhere fast.  He starts getting momentum and just goes faster with his upper body than with his lower body. He really doesn't want to mess around with walking and just wants to run!

As far as his language is concerned, he is really doing great.  His receptive vocabulary is growing.  He knows hi and bye and will wave when we say either, he points up when we say up, he claps when we say yay and has walked me to his booster seat when I ask him if he is hungry.  Now that may not seem all that impressive for a 15 month old, but considering his hearing age is 2 months (we started at 0 when his implants were turned on), I would say he is doing quite well.

As far as speaking, he is definitely trying!  He has been saying "Hhhhhh" for hi when someone says hi to him.  But really the cutest thing is that he know his dog's name.  He and Blackjack are great buddies. They both get so excited when they see each other.  Well for the last few weeks we thought that he might be saying "ja-ja" when he sees the dog, but we weren't sure about it.  Yesterday I was able to confirm it.  Logan, Jasmine and I were out in the front yard and went to the side of the house where Blackjack was because he heard us.  Logan saw him and walked a few steps to the fence and clearly said "Ja-ja" and bent down to try and reach him.  Now I am just asking him when he is going to start calling me Mama again!  

Cochlear Implant Love!!!

I literally have happy tears today!  This morning Logan and I went to Sunshine Cottage for testing.  It was the first time "in the booth" with his cochlear implants and I was anxious to get an idea of what he is hearing with his new ears.

His last hearing test results was with hearing aids and it showed that he responded to sounds in the 50 - 85 decibel range, depending on the frequency. You can compare 50 db to a nearby conversation, although many of the consonants in the English language fall in the 40db range.  And 85 db could be compared to a loud piano or a loud phone ringing. 

Well, during today's testing, Logan was responding at around 20-25 db!  That means he now has great access to language and is now falling in the mild hearing loss range for children.  Not only that, his testing today was based on behavioral responses from Logan and was not a test of his threshold for hearing, or the minimum level that he can hear a specific frequency.   What really has me ecstatic about this is that he may possibly be able to hear a whisper now, which is around 15 db!

I am looking forward to having more testing done in the coming months and to continue getting his cochlear programs mapped and tweeked so that he can get the most out of his devices.  

Finally, in other news, Logan has officially taken his first steps!

Six Weeks Post Activation

It has been six weeks since Logan's ears were turned on and, I have to say, he is doing fantastic.  He is now doing the ma, da, ah sounds, and has also made the g and b sounds, which is great for him.  What is even better is that he is doing so well with conversational turns.  Those of us with naturally working ears do not ever really think about this, but children who are born with hearing loss have to actually learn to listen and learn that communicating through vocalization is important.  We have been working on getting him to request what he wants by vocalizing lately.  For example, Logan and I were playing with one of his toy cars.  He would hand it to me and he wanted me to give it back to him. But I would hold it until he used his voice and I immediately gave it back to him and said "yay, Logan" or something similar.  This goes on until he loses interest in the game.  We also apply this to mealtime and anything else we can think of. 

Also, we had a session with one of Logan's teachers this afternoon and I am so happy about what she had to say about his progress.   Although she prefaced that his progress may not always be at this pace, she said he has been "a rock star of a cochlear implant recipient."  This is because he is so interested in social interaction and wants to be a part of conversations, he wants to use his voice and see you respond back to him.  As she said, this is something that you just can't teach a child and we are fortunate that he has the personality that he does.  She has been teaching deaf children for a very long time and she said that a lot of times kids will not really care to interact or respond to sounds even though they can hear it.

As for his other therapies, we are just waiting for him to officially walk.  He is almost there. He is cruising and crawling so fast and he is letting go for longer and longer periods of time. We are just waiting for him to get up the courage to take a step.  I am hoping he does it in the next few weeks (before he turns 15 months) because then he will be labeled delayed.  Of course, that isn't the end of the world, but I guess I am just being impatient!  You would think that he would be running by now with the way he is climbing up on everything. I can't wait to report that we have another walker in the house!

Four Weeks Post Activation

It has been almost a whole month since Logan's CIs were turned on.  My how time flies! We have certainly been busy with all the extra therapy sessions that have been added in the past month.  We have teachers from both Easter Seals and our school district that we now see once a week each (previously twice a month), our advisor from Sunshine Cottage whom we also see weekly and Logan's physical therapist, which has been bumped to a weekly occurrence as well.  In the next month or so, we'll also be adding Speech Therapy to the mix!

I am very happy to say that I am pleased with the progress he has made in the last month.  As you may or may not know, cochlear implants provide a whole new way of hearing so the recipient must learn how to interpret the information from the digital signal his brain is receiving from them.  Because of this, we were told to consider his hearing like he is a newborn and to expect his vocalizing and speech to roughly follow the timeline of a child in his first year of life.  Of course, this is only a generalization and some children progress much faster than this and other progress slower.

Well, during the first couple of weeks with his new ears Logan was pretty quiet, as expected, since he was learning to listen with his new ears.  But over the last week he has started babbling again! I am thrilled because this started before his ears were even a month old.  He is saying ma-ma-ma-ma and ah ah ah ah.  When I first told one of his teachers she was very excited because she said it usually takes a lot longer for CI kids to start babbling again.

Last Wednesday, his implants were remapped because his swelling has gone down a lot over the last month and they were able to make them louder for him.  Since then, I've also noticed that he is starting to turn more and more toward sounds.  I've even caught him dancing to music, something he had never done before.  We can't wait to see what the next month will bring!

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