Sweet nothings in my ear

CBS just aired a Hallmark movie tonight called "Sweet Nothing in My Ear", about a couple trying to decide if they should get their son a cochlear implant. In the movie, the little boy went deaf at age 4. Chance went deaf at about age 13 months but we didn't find out until he was almost three.
We were very excited to see the movie and see how they played the story out since the mom was against an implant and the father was for an implant. The situation in the movie is a little different from ours since the mother is deaf and so is her father.

I must say we thought the movie was well done and did a good job representing both sides of this issue. I think it is a great resource to help people understand the feelings of those in the Deaf community who may be against getting an implant and the feelings of those who want to let kids have the opportunity to hear.

I don't want to ruin the movie for those who have not seen it, but there is one part in the movie that really hit home for me and made me get teary. The main characters of the movie observe a little boy who is having his implant activated. (After the surgery you have to wait 2 to 4 weeks before the implant is actually turned on.) The father of the boy getting his implant activated calls out his name and, after some tweaking by the audiologist, the little boy responds to the sound.

It took me back to when we were trying to decide if we should get Chance an implant or not. The emotions you feel as a parent as you sift through all of the information and contemplate what you think will be best for your child is incredible. You realize that you are responsible for a decision that will have implications forever. We felt excitement, nervousness and an incredible weight of the decision that we were about to make. I felt for those parents in the movie and all of their questions and their search for what was right for their son.

Oh! The feelings we had were so intense as we contemplated what to do. We sat in the audiologists office, the video camera rolling and poised to take pictures when they turned the implant on for the first time. How would Chance react? What was normal to expect? We knew when Chance had heard something because his eyes went up, he sat up straighter in the chair and a surprised smile spread across his face. It was priceless.

After the movie, a local CBS station ran a story about Chance and our decision to get him an implant. The station did a really good job of representing Chance and capturing him and his personality. Of course, Chance was excited to see himself on the news. How often does that happen?

We actually had an occasion to return to the hospital where Chance got his implant surgeries last week. In the period of a year and a half we had been to the hospital for 5 surgeries. The two implant surgeries for Chance, an operation for his brother and 2 tube surgeries for Chance's baby brother. We KNOW how lovely the frozen yogurt is that is served in the cafeteria so we decided to have lunch there.

Chance was excited to be back. Chance calls it his hospital. During the course of our meal I asked him if he was glad that he got the implant surgeries and he responded with a resounding "Yes! Because now I can hear!"

I can't say it better myself. Chance can hear and we have no regrets about the decision to get him implants.