We were sitting at church a few weeks ago, when I noticed that about 5 rows up sat a little girl with cochlear implants. She looked to be about three years old and it was obvious that her grandmother who sat by her adored her.
After church was over, I went up to talk to the grandma. She was visiting our church that day so I introduced myself and told her that I had a teen-age son that had bilateral implants as well. She was excited and started asking about how Chance was doing and if the implants had worked well for him. Obviously, I said that we LOVED the implants and I told her that Chance played on a competitive soccer team, was on the city swim team and had a job as a swim aid. She was delighted to know that Chance was doing all of that with implants. She was interested in meeting Chance so I called him over. Chance came over smiling, and she asked him questions.
As a parent with a young deaf child, it does your heart good to be able to talk to people who are further along on the implant journey than you are. You want to see older kids who are living with implants and see how they are working out for them. Can they play sports? How are they doing in school? Do they have friends and are they treated well by others? Chance was able to show this sweet grandma that yes, you can do anything that any other child can do even with implants.
We ended up talking to the little girl's parents, and had an immediate connection. You are people sharing a life experience. You learn from each other and share insights you have gained on the journey. I love to connect with other parents who have deaf and hard of hearing children. We parted after exchanging cell phone numbers in case either of us has questions or perhaps answers to questions that may arise.
We are part of an implant family and we keep finding delightful members of our family as we travel along on our journey.
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