The Remote is Back!

Since it is Superbowl Sunday today, I am sure that many households are giving top priority to their remote controls.  These little rectangular gadgets full of the buttons that make our television sets perform are a hot commodity on a day such as today.

See - isn't that stylish ?!

At our house, we also have a love for our remote.......the remote that controls the cochlear implant.  If we had to choose between our remotes, we would ditch the television remote without even saying goodbye.


                                                  THE REMOTE IS BACK!


Chance has never been so excited to get a package before.  We could even use it as a disciplinary tool if we wanted.  Some parents take away Wii time if their kids don't get their jobs done, we take away Chance's remote.

Just kidding.  We are not that cruel and heartless.  The point is, Chance is attached to that remote enough that we could use it as a control measure if we were those kinds of people.

This remote is one that we let Chance have full time.  It is the one piece of technology that parents don't have to worry about wasting their kids time or being mishandled.

I probably have never said this before, but I really love cochlear implants.

I really love the remote that came with the implants and am so very grateful that we have it in our lives again. Thank you to all of those who support us in our journey to help our son hear.
We will always remember you and your big hearts.
You are a blessing in our lives.
\

Singing over kicks??

As is well known by now, Chance is taking choir at school.  It is also common knowledge that Chance loves soccer.  Chance loves soccer.  Did I mention that?  In case I didn't:  Chance loves soccer!

This 3rd term schedule has created a conflict of interest between these two classes.  Chance took both classes last term, but the way the schedule is this term, he has to choose only one.  That is because his schedule is crowded with mandatory classes and the only one left to drop for futsal is choir.

When I told Chance, he did that gesture he does when he is inner conflict.  He hangs his head and goes into deep introspection, a look of consternation on his face.

I was glad to see that his first response was not to just kick up his heels and gleefully announce that he could just drop his choir class.

He had to give it some thought.  And then he did the unthinkable.  HE CHOSE CHOIR OVER FUTSOL.

For this term anyways.  Next term it will be spring and time to try out for the school soccer team.  Chance is already planning on making that team.  (In fact, the soccer coaches are begging him to try out.)

Fourth term may bring more angst for the same reason third term did, but I think Chance already knows he is playing soccer come spring.

He is just holding onto choir as long as he can.

I am impressed.  He likes to sing.  And with the girl to boy ratio in that class, they need him:)

Chance has also been going to a voluntary youth choir at church for a special meeting coming up in a few weeks.  And, he still regularly attends our ward choir which sings for our congregation about every other month.

My boy likes to sing.  My boy can sing. He can sing with other kids his age, and with our church group.

I didn't know I could dream of all this singing for him when he was first diagnosed as being deaf.

I wanted Chance to be able to sing and enjoy music, I just just didn't know if it was going to be physically possible for him.

None of the professionals working with us dared answer me when I asked if Chance would ever be able to enjoy music when he was diagnosed as being deaf.

God knew though.  You can't go wrong if God knows you can do something.  Chance had a special blessing when he was diagnosed as being deaf that said he would be able to enjoy and play music.

And God helped us get Chance his implants.  I can not pretend that we did it alone.  God has had a hand in Chance's life and been very aware of his deafness and helped us to get what Chance needed when he needed it.  Sometimes in ways we never could have imagined.

Chance has been so blessed to have his cochlear implants and the possibilities they help bring into his life.

With God and his implants, anything is possible for Chance. Right now Chance is enjoying music, just like God knew he could.

Chance listens with his heart

Chance's siblings were delighted to discover while reading a book about the body, that if they cut the end off of a cup and then put it up to someone's chest, they would be able to hear their heart beating.

They were all excitedly practicing on each other when Chance walked in the door.  They ran up to him ready to have him join in the fun.

They implored him with,"If you let me listen to yours, I'll let you listen to mine!"

Chance seemed pretty neutral about the whole thing which surprised me.  He usually enjoys these sorts of activities with his siblings .

Then he said,"OK, just a minute...You can hear my heart, but this stuff doesn't work good for me because my ears don't work like yours do."

It made so much sense once he said that, but it had not occurred to me that the experience would be any different for Chance.

Being the awesome brother that he is, Chance let his siblings listen to his heart even though it would not be the same for him to listen to theirs.

Thanks Chance for listening with your heart to your siblings and playing along with them when listening with your ears was not going to give you the same experience.

Would that be the girl loo or the boy loo?

Like many church meetings, ours is usually a time for those attending to be quiet and attentive.  This is usually a format that we highly encourage our children to practice while we all sit on the pew.

And that is the way everyone in the family was behaving yesterday until Chance's brother took Chance's baby sister out to the bathroom.  She just can't wait for the meeting to end sometimes.

When they returned, I was informed by my youngest child that they had gone into the girls bathroom.  My mind conjured up her dress dipping into the toilet etc. so that her brother had to go in and save her.

I was surprised that he would send her into the girls bathroom alone. She needs help with her dresses and she insisted that her brother be the one to take her to the loo.

So while sitting on the bench in the quiet chapel,  I mouthed to Chance's brother,"You went into the girls bathroom?"

Chance was sitting just beyond his brother and while the original target of the question did not get what I was saying, Chance, lip reader extraordinaire did.

Chance and his brother climbing a waterfall last summer.

"HE WENT INTO THE GIRLS BATHROOM?!" Yes, Chance can mouth phrases with great emphasis while still being silent.   Then Chance started laughing hysterically.  Belly laughing while covering his mouth to try to stay quiet.

Then I started laughing because of Chance's response and had to quietly shake with laughter on the bench while Chance's brother sat mouthing,"What??"

I shortly thereafter was slipped a note informing me that no, they did not go into the girls bathroom, they had been in the boys bathroom.

The moral of this story is, never mouth anything to anyone where Chance can see you unless you want Chance in on the conversation.  He WILL know what you are saying:)

All I want for Christmas is a caption phone

Chance didn't actually ask for a caption phone to be installed New Year's Eve, but he also didn't even know those kinds of phones existed.  If he had been aware of them, he just may have asked Santa for a caption phone judging by his reaction when he realized we were getting one.

I made arrangements for the technician to come install the phone, and then in the excitement of the holidays, I forgot to tell Chance for a few days.

We were all sitting in the living room one night and I thought it might be a  good idea to share with Chance that a man was coming Monday morning to install his phone.

I explained what a caption phone was and Chance, who was perched on the arm of his dads chair sat silent for a moment just looking at me.

Then in a quiet voice he said," I really need one of those."

So it is, that now a caption phone is sitting on the desk in our kitchen just waiting to help Chance have better quality phone calls.

A good friend of ours who is deaf and uses implants had posted a link to the caption phone on her Facebook page and I had clicked on it just because I was curious.

The link said that we could get a caption phone for free if we qualified.  This kind of qualifying didn't have anything to do with how much money you make, but if you had a hearing loss.

Chance definitely qualified.

I was really skeptical about that free part though.  We all know what free means.  Nothing is free.  If someone is offering something for free, they are either trying to take your money by deceit or send a salesmen over to your house who will introduce you to the "free" service that ends up costing $1000.00 when all is said and done.

But I trusted enough to call because I trusted my friend.  If she had one, then she must have found these people to be legitimate.

The phones are provided by CaptionCall to all CaptionCall users for free to those who are eligible for captioning so they can access the service.

The captiontioning is funded through the telephone companies, usually passed on through a surcharge.  Funds go into the Interstate Telecommunications Relay Service(TRS) which pays for multiple relay services and is supervised by the Federal Communications Commission(The FCC).

The phone works because when you pick up the special phone, a person who types the captioning picks up too and types out what is being said.  You can turn off the captioning so if Chance picks up the phone, but then hands it to someone else, the captioning does not have to continue.

We have made it clear to the kids that this is CHANCE"S PHONE and none of them are to use it, even though it is tempting to play with it because it is so cool.  None of our other phones type out what your friends are saying.

This should give Chance a measure of freedom he has not had before.  He could always talk on the phone, but the quality of the conversation has been dictated by the phones being used and how the voice of the person he is talking to comes through.  Some people talk quietly, sometimes they are hard to understand because of accents or background noise or any number of things.

Chance is 12.  He needs the freedom to access phone calls on his own terms here at home.  He does not usually ask us for help.  Many times he just does not catch all that is being said.   Although, it does mean it won't be as entertaining for his dad and I since we won't end up having to be middle men as he asks girls out on dates years from now:)

How do you win an arguement with a brother that can take his ears off?

Chance got into a friendly argument with his brother this morning over who should be able to shoot Chance's air soft gun.

This sounds like a no-brainer on the surface since the gun is Chance's Christmas present.

The plot thickens however, when you take into consideration that Chance's brother is the one that loaded the 72 pellets into the gun.

But that was after he shot the pellets Chance put in to begin with.

As you can see, it gets complicated.

So Chance's dad and I were holding a sort of informal court in our living room listening to the boys give their side to the story.

It was a friendly banter with Chance and his brother frequently laughing in between pleading their cases.

At one point, when a fact was in dispute,  Chance turned to his brother laughing and gingerly lifted the magnets of his implants off of his head so he could no longer hear.

Chance had already made his point, after all; who needed to hear the opposition?

It was about at this point in our hearing that Chance's dad was explaining that in order to accomplish anything, the boys needed to not just talk but listen to each other.

Chance's brother said tapping Chance and grinning,"Ya Chance, put your ears back on!"

It is a unique opportunity that our kids have to argue with a sibling who can turn their ears off.  This particular  disagreement was all happening in good humor.

I can imagine that if any of my siblings had the ability to basically turn off their ears during a serious dispute, I would have been highly annoyed.

Ahhh the memories our kids will have of disputes with their deaf brother growing up:)

People have questions, we have some answers

Sometimes when we are out and about, people will ask questions about Chance's implants.  This has been the case from the beginning.  People are curious at the park, the store, the zoo, the restaurant.....we have been approached in all of these places.

I am glad that people feel comfortable asking about Chance and his implants.  They usually have a personal interest for doing so such as their grandchild just got diagnosed with hearing loss, or they have a friend whose child is deaf etc.  Sometimes, people are just curious.  Most of the time they are hesitant at first, trying not to offend, but it has never been a big deal for our family.

My children once took advantage of the fact that a grandfather approached me in the frozen food section of the grocery store to ask about implants, and added items I don't usually buy into our cart. Chance was in on the deal too.

This grandfather had just found out that his grand daughter was deaf and wanted to know how I felt about the implants and if they had really helped Chance.  

Chance has implants and many people out there don't know exactly what they are and how they work.  Or if they really work that well at all.

Chance takes it all in stride.  He takes them off his head so people can see them or just talks to them and answers questions.  

I have asked Chance and it does not bother him to talk to people about  his implants.

I don't feel people are being rude when they ask about the implants, I would rather have them ask then just stare and wonder. Especially people who have young children in their lives who have hearing loss as most of us know next to nothing about hearing loss and deafness when the diagnosis is handed down to our families.

This week, Chance was at a college basketball game with some family and friends, when the people sitting in the row behind him, noticed Chance had implants and asked him how long he had had them.

When Chance told them six years, they said,"Wow! Only six years.  You talk great!"

It turns out this family has 5 year old triplets, two of which have implants.  They got their implants at six months of age.

The triplets were not at the game, but Chance talked to their parents about his implants and how he liked them.

It was always nice for us to see kids that were a little bit older with hearing aids and implants when Chance was younger so that we could get a glimpse of what the future may hold for Chance.  

Chance is now at a stage where he can give parents of little kids with deafness a glimpse of what the future of their implanted kids may hold.

And the possibilities are amazing!

We're mov'in on up

In case anyone is wondering, we have not yet found the remote. We are past the point of thinking it is just laying on some random surface of the house and has been overlooked.  Obviously, the little device has found a more obscure location to lodge itself. I would have included a picture of the remote in this post, but obviously that will have to wait.

 Did I mention that the remote costs $500.00 to replace?

We need that remote, and deep down, I think it needs us too.  After all, what good can it do if we can't use it?  Pray for us.

On the bright side, Chance just had another visit to his audiologist.  His left ear, which had been performing at about 30% is now scoring at 75% with 72% word recognition and 87% phonemes recognition.  Before the implant failure, he was scoring at about 85% in that left ear, so we are on the way back to normal.

To demonstrate what having a loss in one ear can do, I share an example from Chance's Sunday School class several weeks ago.  The teacher was talking about a man named Aaron.  Due to rowdy 12 year old boys and the sheer number in the classroom, Chance was having a hard time hearing, so he repeated back, Darrin?
His teacher said no, Aaron.

Chance said Saren?

His teacher said, "No, Aaron."

"Maron"  Chance asked.

His teacher said A-A-R-O-N with added emphasis, speaking slower and smacking his hand against his head. This was in no way intended as a slam on Chance, he is good friends with his teacher.  It was more exasperation at the noise level in the classroom.

"Oh AARON!"  Chance said laughing.

Having two fully working ears really does help:)

The remote

Chance is a responsible and organized boy which is a good thing.  Except, in the case of his remote for his implants, it was not enough.

We have lost the remote to Chance's implants. When we first realized that this new upgrade had a remote control, we immediately thought of the possibility of losing the remote.

We reasoned that Chance was older now and that should lessen the chance for a loss since he was old enough to be responsible and take care of his things.

We even designated a place in the house where the remote should go.....the implant drawer where batteries, stick ons(for the cover of the implant) and protective cases are kept.

We made it for a few months:)

We keep thinking the thing is going to turn up in some random place but so far it has kept itself well hidden.
Part of the problem, which we will be sure to address as soon as we actually find the dang thing, is that Chance tends to carry the remote around the house at night.

We need some sort of system like our phones have so we can page the remote.

The remote is awesome and a great tool to help change channels on the implant etc. and someday, we'll be able to utilize those options again.

Soon.  Hopefully soon.

Honor Roll

Just a little poem to express some of my feelings about our journey with my sweet son Chance.

      A Chance To Hear

There once was a young boy who could not hear,

he had been unable to express that he was deaf in both ears.

When the diagnosis was given, the doctors were leery,

what could they tell the boys parents who were shocked and weary?

Would this boy go to school with all of his peers,

would he ever regain the use of his ears?

Could he play sports and be active like his brother,

would he and his hearing cousins be able to bond with each other?

Would the neighborhood kids include him in their games,

could he hang out with his peers and feel just the same?

What would this boy be able to learn in school,

would he only communicate with other deaf people as a rule?

What were his possibilities for jobs and career,

would he be independent and interact with those that could hear?

Would his options in life be limited and created by others,

would his life be full of the same possibilities as  his brother?

How would this deaf boys life play out,

would he feel fullfilled and know what the world was about?

Would he realize that he was capable of anything he sent his mind to,

that he was smart, and could do anything anyone else could do?

Did he know how much he was loved even though he did not hear the expressions,

did he know  his parents were doing everything in their power to help him?

Did he feel when his mother held him that everything was going to be alright,

that together with his dad they would find what he needed no matter the fight?

Only time could tell what the boys future would hold,

everyone would have to wait and see what would unfold.

It soon became apparent that the boy was persistent,

he would work hard, over come, and be resistant.

After being behind his peers by two and a half years for many grades,

the boy  would begin to triumph and the gap would slowly begin to fade.

When his peers worked hard, the boy would work harder,

he was not content with just doing the minimum, he was determined to go farther.

After years of work, determination and incredible will,

the boy caught up and surpassed many of his peers and kept going still.

By junior high, and a failing implant that had to be replaced,

the boy was holding his own and moving at an accelerated pace.

As a sign of triumph and a testimony of what this boy could accomplish,

he completely immersed himself with his peers and caught  up from his early years

He had never given up and held strong to lofty goals,

and now a certificate from his school has let him know,

Despite all the obstacles, challenges and the unknown,

through the years the boy had persevered and grown,

And as just one of the tokens along the path has shown,

how far he has come, how far he has grown,

The boy brought home a certificate so that we all could know,

that CHANCE HAS MADE THE HONOR ROLL!