How Chance celebrates Halloween

This is Chance planning and carving his Halloween pumpkin.  We have a pumpkin patch up the hill by our house and so the kids all got to pick their own pumpkins.  Naturally, everyone chose the biggest ones they could find.

Morph Suit + High Heels = Chance?

Chance has been enjoying this Halloween season.  He went to a Halloween party dressed in his morph suit, and then at some point during the party, he decided to wear the high heeled shoes of one of his friends.  He asked me how girls could wear high heels because they are really hard to walk in.  I hope those shoes are OK for his friend to wear again.... Chance's feet are not small and dainty by any stretch of the imagination.

At school and for trick or treating, Chance dressed up as Sanka from the movie Cool Runnings.  So did his brother.  Chance now says that he wants dreadlocks, but apparently he got voted "best hair" a few weeks ago at school with what he's already got so he may want to reconsider.

Chance went trick or treating with his cousin and texted me with the message that they had gathered 11 POUNDS OF CANDY!  I am going to have to bury some of it in the backyard so that Chance doesn't get sick.

The ultimate game of bowling

My phone camera blurs during action shots, but this is Chance making his move.

Chance is quite the bowler.  Our family doesn't actually go bowling all that often. but between our family trips and the few times Chance has gone bowling with friends, it has been enough to give him a knack for the game.

To celebrate Chance's younger brother's birthday, we set out for bowling as a family this past week and Chance beat us all. I like to think that I gave him a bit of competition, but he did beat me by 12 points. I am not a superb bowler but I was having a good day:)

I wonder if you can get college scholarships for bowling?  What about a soccer bowling mix?  We may need to let Chance go bowling more often.  If having long legs helps you to bowl better, Chance has that one covered.

When deaf and hard of hearing kids think they can hear you

Now that I have another child with hearing loss, I am noticing a trend.  They think they can hear you when their devices aren't on.  But I'm here to tell you that they can't.  Chance used to tell us, without his hearing aids on, that he could hear us.  It was actually pretty hilarious sometimes.  Like the time he was climbing up onto the cupboard to get something down.  It was bedtime so his hearing aids were not on. I was trying to tell him that I was saving whatever he was trying to get down, but he couldn't hear me so I suggested that he put his hearing aids back on.

"I can hear you mom!" He shouted, that's not a clue at all that he is not hearing well:)  He wasn't shouting at me because he was mad, he was shouting everything he said.

So, I turned my back to him so he couldn't see my lips.  He did not like that one bit!

"Mom!  Turn around so I can hear you!!"  Uh huh. So I can read your lips is what he was really saying.

Chance has pretty much come to the conclusion after all of this time that he is deaf, although every once in a while he will tell us he can hear us when we all know for sure that he can not.

My other son who is losing his hearing does the same thing sometimes.  You can kind of see him being confused, due to the fact that his hearing is not stable.  It came up in some middle pitches, and fell quite a bit in his right ear.  Just today, his brother asked him which ear was easier to hear out of and he shrugged his shoulders. He is in the moderate to severe hearing loss range though, so when he doesn't have a hearing aid on and he is a room away from me, telling me he hears me, I don't buy it. This is not my first time around the block with hearing loss:) He may be looking at me, but he doesn't yet have the lip reading skills of Chance.  He hasn't had the need to learn how to lip read thus far.  Chance is a master.

In honor of deaf and hard of hearing kids in our family, who claim to hear when they really don't, I give you Chance during the early years.

Chance at a hike to a waterfall when he was 5 years old.

The walk back from the waterfall.

Enlisting Chance

Chance's brother does not like wearing a hearing aid.  The situation just keeps getting better as it was discovered this week that not only does he need an aid in his left ear, but his right ear needs an aid now too.

This past week, I enlisted Chance to talk to his brother about the benefits of wearing your hearing aid/implant. The boys were sitting on bar stools at our kitchen island and the conversation went something like this:

Chance: "You need to wear your hearing aid because you need to hear."

His brother: "I can already hear."

Chance: "But you need to hear more."

His brother:" I don't like wearing it."

Chance:" Trust me, it is better to hear.  Do you see that I have my implants on everyday? That is so I can hear what is going on.  Trust me, you want to hear what is going on."

Chance's brother:" Ya, but you have implants not hearing aids!"

Chance:"I used to have hearing aids when I was younger. And I would wear them!"

Chance's brother is not fully convinced that he needs to wear his one hearing aid all the time, I don't know that he will be thrilled with wearing two.

On a funny note:  After his brother's last hearing test, I pulled Chance aside and told that his brother had lost more hearing and that if his hearing continued to fall, he would need an implant.

Chance went pale for a minute and sputtered out,"What?"

I said,'Your brother is losing more hearing and will need your support.  If he continues to lose hearing, he will need an implant.

Chance sighed with relief. "Oh, I thought you were saying that he would need one of my implants!"

What could be better than sharing one of your implants with a brother?  (Of course, with the price of implants, maybe that's not such a bad idea :> )

I think it is safe to say that Chance has built a relationship with both of his implants and does not want to part with either one of them:)

Chance holds a butterfly that his brother caught 

Below is part of the email that Chance's Chinese teacher sent me along with a video of Chance and another student talking in Chinese to each other.  I would show the video, but it takes place in the hall of the school and there is noise in the background.  Chance's dad and I were pretty excited to watch our boy talking in Chinese.  I would at least tell you what Chance said in the video, but.....I don't know any Chinese;)

Here is what his teacher had to say:

"On the last test, he and another student's video dialogue got chosen as the best of the class! Specifically, because his pronunciation, comprehension (unscripted!!!) and body language all showed he really knew what was going on."

Ya Chance! You go! 

The teacher also asked if there was anything she needed to know about the implants as she didn't have any experience working with students who have implants.  I love teachers like this.  She makes sure that Chance sits front and center in the classroom which he probably needs to focus on the sounds and have the least amount of distractions as he distinguishes between the subtle sound changes in the Chinese language.  


I would like to update the status of Chance's younger brother who is losing hearing.  He is on some medication right now to see if we can stop his hearing from falling any further.  We have a hearing test on Wednesday to help us see if the medication is working. 

Meanwhile, this boy does NOT like to wear his hearing aid.  He only has one right now, but that one is being underutilized.  I will ask him,"Do you have your hearing aid in?"  Or 'Are you wearing your hearing aid?"  He is pretty tricky and will remove his hearing aid during the course of the day.  Some of the responses I have received are:

"No, I am making macaroni and cheese."  Naturally, one can not wear a hearing aid while doing this.

"I am going outside and it might rain."  This could be used as an excuse every time it is cloudy.

"No,I am going to jump on the tramp."  This might be a valid excuse if the hearing aid fell out while he was on the trampoline, but I don't think he has ever tried jumping with the hearing aid in his ear to know.

This past week, right in the middle of choir practice, he decided to take his hearing aid out.  After all, who needs to hear while they learn to sing;)  There was a malfunction though, and before he could get it into his pocket, the thing started to squeal like hearing aids do when you take them out and they are still turned on.  I could see the panic on his face as kids started to turn and look to see where the noise was coming from and he was having a hard time opening the battery pack that turns the hearing aid off.   I ended up going up to help him.  I didn't make him put it back in right then, though I did suggest that he do so. His face was flush with embarrassment and I didn't want to draw any more attention to him and his hearing aid.  I took the aid and put it in my purse for the rest of the practice and then we talked after wards about the importance of being able to hear as best we can during choir practice.  He is really excited to be in choir so hopefully he won't try to ditch his hearing aid again while learning the songs.  Meanwhile, I am working to come up with incentives to help him keep his hearing aid in all day long.  Apparently being able to hear better, is not incentive enough right now:)

This is Chance bonding with a cow at the state fair. I think the cow likes him.

The World of Hearing Underwater

*NOTICE*

CHANCE PAXTON SPEAKING

I always wondered what it was like to hear underwater. Now I know because of the new waterproof cases that I have received. It is a miraculous sound beyond what I had imagined. Sometimes in movies they will have a sound affect when someone or something is underwater and it was kind of like that except better! I could hear myself swimming! It was AMAZING!!!!! I can hear my friends when they are talking to me when we go free swimming! It is awesome and exciting!!!!!!

I think that Chance likes the water proof Aqua+ covers we bought from Cochlear at the beginning of the summer:)

Chance standing in a natural spring area in the mountains near our house.

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Chance talks about learning Chinese

Hello, this is Chance here.

My mom is having me explain what it is like to take Chinese for my language in school. I got into Chinese thinking, this is probably going to be a boring class because you have to learn how to pronounce the different tones and pronunciation but I have a couple of friends in there and it turns out that it is better than I thought it was going to be. It is actually a bit fun learning the new language, there are a few benefits of learning a language that many people aren't taking, one is you can talk in a different class and the teacher will have no idea what you are saying. 

Two is that you can have a private conversation with your friend and everyone else will have no idea what you are saying (girls...). Chinese can be a very hard language to take but it is better than you think it is going to be. It's awesome being able to pronounce and read words in a different language. 

This is Chance's mom here.  Chance came up to me yesterday and started telling me the different sounds that he has learned in his Chinese class so far.  He likes the class and has several friends in there that could prove to be good for study groups when they need to study for tests.  Chinese is not a subject that Chance's dad and I are going to be able to help him with.   Hopefully, having great friends in his class will not distract Chance from utilizing his listening skills to the highest degree:)

Chance and his brother

Chance takes the challenge and sleeps on

Many of you may be aware of the ALS challenge that is playing out across social media like Facebook. (  Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, is a disease of the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movement. ALS is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.) The idea is to raise awareness for this debilitating disease that has no cure and I would guess very little understanding.   Chance was challenged and taking the challenge, had a HUGE bucket of ice water dumped on his head this morning.  When you accept the challenge, you challenge at least 3 other people that you know to do the same thing.

Chance took his implants off for the dunking as it was 5 gallons of ice water poured over his head in about 5 seconds. Chance loved it. He was cold, but he loved it

The last few nights we have had several storms with massive claps of thunder. The kind of thunder that wakes you up from a sound sleep because your whole house just shook and the noise is so loud, that your brain is instantly alert to see if you are in danger.   Chance sleeps on. Waking him is like waking the dead, so I don't know if even a shaking house is enough to wake him up. I will have to verify with him, but I have not heard him say one word about the noisy storms, but the rest of the family compares how long it took to get back to sleep after being jolted awake like that.

 Yes, Chance is the soundest sleeper in our house.  The situation reminds me of a children's book we have called "Bear Snores On" about a hibernating bear that sleeps through all of his friends coming into his cave and having a party.  Maybe the family should try having a party in Chance's room after he is asleep and we can see if he sleeps through it. We could call it, "Chance Snores on."

Chance strikes a pose.

We meet a fellow implant family

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.

Chance goes to youth camp

Chance spent the last week at a camp for youth.  He was so excited to go and had been planning on what he would pack for days.  There would be girls there and dances, so what one packed was extremely important.
Chance did a good job packing all he needed including his guitar for the variety show.

 He roomed with a friend who was also deaf, so we had to tell the counselors that they would have to go in and wake those boys up or they might miss all of the morning classes. Chance had cousins and his brother attending the same camp, but because of differences in age, they didn't really see each other that much.

We dropped all of the boys off on Monday morning where the entire week lay ahead of them for fun and friendship.  We planned on picking them up on Saturday morning when the camp was over and we could hear about how great camp had been.

Monday night, at 11:05, I got a text.  It was from Chance, who had forgotten his battery charger for his implants.

Excuse me a minute.....Ha! Ha! Ha! He goes away for a week and forgets his battery charger??  Chance is usually so responsible and on the ball with this stuff that we were just shocked.  Lucky for him the camp was just a half hour away.  It was bedtime lights out though, and we got the text late so we planned on delivering the charger and extra rechargeable batteries the next morning.

The next morning, our home phone rang at 6:50 a.m. I knew it was Chance right away, and told Chance's dad that his implants must be dying.

Chance told us that his implants were beeping and that meant he had about 20 minutes left to hear.  We called the camp and told the counselor that we were on our way and in the mean time, Chance would be signing out and would not be able to hear anything.

It all turned out well in the end.  We delivered Chance's implant charger and he was able to hear for the rest of the week which is good since not being able to hear all week at camp would be most unfortunate.

Next week, I'll blog about the COWS of camp.  That stands for the crush of the week.  Everyone apparently knows this term, and the really brave souls, tell their COW how they feel by the end of the week. If you tell your COW and they don't feel the same, it is rather awkward.  If you tell them and they feel the same however, then it makes camp just that much better.