 | |||||||||
| Chance getting ready for 2nd implant. |
Primary Children's Hospital once again worked their kid magic and made Chance feel at home with a surgery buddy who would go into surgery with him that he dressed and drew a face on.
That second implant was a harder decision for me than getting the first one. I went through thoughts of how it would affect future technological advances, if it would damage parts of the ear that would later in his life be fixable as technology improved.....I pondered a lot.
Flash forward 6 years and we now have an opportunity to see just what benefits that second implant has given us.
Our particular cochlear implant manufacture has a 99% reliability rate for the last 7 years. We looked into the failure rates and problems implant companies have as we researched which implant to get. Cochlear Americas had the least amount of failure rates and their service was superb so we elected to go with a Freedom device which was the newest device at the time. We could not be happier with the benefit that the implants have brought to Chance over the past 6 years, and feel very blessed.
As luck would have it, we are one of the 1% failure rate. The internal device in Chance's left ear is not working correctly and it is therefore expedient that we replace it with a new one.
Chance is already scheduled for surgery on the 5th of September.
Cochlear has been so good to work with both us and our audiologist. They take this failure personally and are working to see that the process of getting another one is as painless as possible. We have a representative at the company to work with and our audiologist has called and made the neccessary arrangements for surgery. We are grateful to all who are helping us.
Chance had his regular appointment at the first of the month before school started. At the time, our audiologist said that the left implant was testing lower than normal but not to be too concerned. He told us that on a scale from one to ten, we should be at about a 3. The plan was that we would take Chance back up in September and test again to see how the implant fared.
Our wonderful audiologist who takes impeccable notes, then went back and looked things over. He came to the realization that Chance's left implant was sliding a little more each time he saw us. He then took that information to Cochlear and it was evident that the implant was failing and the decision was made to reimplant.
When we got the call from our audiologist, it was a shock out of the blue. We had not even thought about internal implant malfunction.
In a weird way, it was a relief to me to know there was an actual reason for what I had been experiencing with Chance the past little while.
Chance had not been responding to me like he usually does. For instance, when I would call him and he was in another part of the house, sometime he claimed he had not heard me at all.
Then there were times when we were sitting as a family reading scriptures etc. and it would seem as if Chance was not paying attention. He was with us, but he seemed to be preoccupied or
something. When I asked him if he was listening, he said,"Yes, but it is hard to hear you."
There have been sevearl instances like that during the past bit that I have noticed. I was honestly wondering if Chance was exhibiting behaviors that were coming up as he got older. I was rather alarmed as I can usually count on Chance to listen and follow through. I was afraid we might be wandering into some growing pains where he would elect not to listen as well and I was not excited to enter this phase.
Finding out that his impant was failing started to make sense. And boy does that second implant make a difference in hearing! Now that I am aware, I realize just how many times Chance is saying,"What?" and needs things to be repeated.
I am also seeing how not having hearing on one side affects his daily life. Since his left ear faces me when he sits up front in the van, he has a harder time hearing me when I talk to him. We have to make the van quieter than before so he can hear what is going on, sometimes turning off the air condioning etc. for a minute.
He can still hear with just the one implant, but we are seeing the benefit of a second one working full force. Chance has to concentrate more to hear things and he does not hear as well.
I noticed the affects of his left ear not hearing as well long before I was aware that there was a mechanical problem. It is a relief to know that as of now, Chance is not listening to me like he used to because he can't not because he won't.
It is also a relief to know that we are going to get the surgery done and be able to get the left ear up and going again.
We miss it.
