Hunting for Bears

Isobel is adapting to her cochlear implant beautifully. All the experts seem to be pretty impressed with how she's coping, what she can her and her responses to sounds.

We are striving forward with therapy in one respect, but have gone backwards in others. About 15 minutes a day, Isobel works without her hearing aid and just uses the implant.

We have gone back to our Ling 6 sounds and training her brain to hear them and distinguish between them. She is doing pretty well at it. She also has to distinguish between different songs that we've done from the beginning. She's also doing pretty well at that too.
She is back to not liking me to cover my mouth, as she is trying to cheat a bit while her brain get used to the new sounds and deciphering them. Knowing we have paced through this phase before gives me confidence to know that we'll get through it again.


Our current book for therapy is Michael Rosen's 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'. It is full of lots of repetitive language, which is very good for listening to and echoing. Both girls are very much enjoying the book and get very drawn into it. It is so lovely to see Isobel getting so excited by stories and books.

 

 

We ended the evening by going on a bear hunt out the back of our apartment building. It was getting dark, so we took our torches and set of through the small wooded area looking for a bear. We used all the words we could remember as we trekked through our story.

 

Sadly, we didn't find a bear, but we did come across a big Apa instead!



Switched On

Isobel's scar is healing up nicely and yesterday, we were back at the hospital for our switch on.

I have to confess to being somewhat disappointed with the actual 'switch on'! After watching so many wonderful life changing moments on You tube, I think I may have built up the moment to be greater than it could ever be.

Realistically, it was never going to be an 'eureka moment'. Isobel isn't going from silence to perfect hearing and understanding. She's going from Some hearing and understanding to noise and confusion.

However, in the doctors office yesterday there was no real reaction to the device. The Audiologist showed us graphs so we could see that neurologically, it was working.

After going through 40 minutes of instruction of how to use the device, clean it and put together the variations of processor and battery pack combinations, we finally went home.

After the children had gone to bed, Nick and I went through our briefcase paraphernalia. So much stuff to go through and make sure that we know how it works and how to get it to stay on Isobel's ear. Finally, we went to bed wondering if yet again we had done the right thing.

So much stuff behind her ear

This morning was eventful, trying to get everything to balance and fit behind Isobel's ear. The conventional battery pack behind her ear is too big and fights against the coil and magnet causing her ear to really stick out.

In the end I opted for the child battery pack connected to the processor  a wire. I managed to get it to stay behind her ear by by sewing the ear gear sleeve to the headband that Isobel wears to hold her hearing aid on.

My CI Processor holder (patent pending - ha)

All was balanced and I switched the power on.

Isobel immediately burst into tears crying, "too much shout, too much squeak. EEEEEEE!"

A reaction! I was so relieved, concerned of course because she was crying, but thrilled to see a reaction to it. I managed to turn down the volume using the remote control and quickly she calmed down and was happy.

The walk to school was very different this morning. "ssshhh Mummy"

Later today she was playing with the sounds her voice makes, it's quite funny to listen to. She has also continued to be her chatty self, and as the day has gone on she has returned to the little girl full of smiles.

I guess, in the end, we got our 'eureka moment' after all.