Mike's Implant - One Year Later

As this blog doubles as a family journal, I wanted to do a quick post about Mike's implant now that he's had it for a full year. Keep in mind this is all from my perspective so who knows if what I'm writing is even true (maybe Mike will do a follow up post in his own words - we'll see).

Overall Mike's implant has been a wonderful blessing both for him and for our family. He adjusted amazing well to it with very little extra work on his part (by extra work I mean specialized "listening" therapy and practice). The only practice he did was listening to me and others in normal conversation and asking me what he was hearing any time he couldn't pin-point where a sound was coming from. The audiologist has been floored by his progress as she's never seen an adult adjust so quickly or hear as well as he does. He's just awesome that way! At his last mapping in June his hearing test showed he was hearing at an average of 10 decibels across all frequencies (which is within normal range. Before that ear was 110 decibels!)

I've been amazed too! Essentially Mike can hear almost anything I can. He hears and understands Hazel as well as I do; he hears Eliza crying from the next room; he understands conversations without needing to lip-read; he hears things that are quiet like a clock ticking and things that are far away like an ambulances; he hears well enough to follow conversations in groups most of the time. Even after a year he is still discovering new sounds. Last night he thought he heard someone knocking but it was actually water dripping from the faucet in to our metal kitchen sink. He has tried talking on the phone some to his family and I thought he did really well. I think if he practiced more he could hold conversations with unfamiliar people on the phone, but he hasn't shown much interest in gaining that skill because he's comfortable not talking on the phone.

Now, that being said I don't want this to read like the implant has completely restored him to normal hearing. He is still very much deaf (and glad to be so at times!) and the implant certainly has its limitations. It doesn't pick up sounds as well in large rooms/outside and because Mike only has one implant he may not hear a sound depending on the direction its coming from. And while he is able to hear so many things, it is still work to make sense of what he is hearing. Mike still prefers watching movies with the captions on so he can just enjoy them and doesn't miss anything. He still has interpreters for all of his classes so he can focus on learning the material without having to "think" about understanding what is being said. For church, Mike still prefers having interpreters for the same reason (although, one week at my parent's ward without an interpreter he felt like he understood about 80% of what was said in Sacrament which is a huge improvement of 0% before). He still prefers to sign. As a family I will say that we sign less now than we used to. With two kids it's often easier for both of us since our hands our tied up and we can't always be within sight. But, when it's just the two of us I think we sign about as often as we did before the implant.

I know that Mike has been happy with his decision to get the implant. In fact, given the opportunity he would like to have the other ear done too. Originally the plan was that he would use a hearing aid in the other ear, but after the implant he refuses. He says it sounds terrible and he can't understand anything he hears from that ear anyways. Even after the audiologist asked him to give it another try just for a week, he lasted about half a day before ripping it out again, haha. All of the goals Mike has for his implant have been realized (serve in church more, understand the kids better, etc). And honestly I can't think of anything he doesn't like about it. At first the bit of extra weight bothered him a bit, but he is used to it by now and loves now having anything in his ear canal now. Overall, we have been extremely blessed with this technology and overjoyed with the results we've seen.

Eliza's 4 months!

I don't know where the time goes, but Eliza is already 4 months old! She is growing up to be sweet as can be. At her four month check up she was a petite 10 lbs 10 oz and 23 1/2 inches. She's doing really well overall. She has had two PT appointments so far and it's going well. They've said that she is tight all the way down her right side including her neck so they're working a lot on stretching her out. They're also starting to work on her strength. Eliza hasn't even thought about rolling over yet but in a way I think it's her personality. Where Hazel is such a "go-getter" and wants to do everything right now, by herself, Eliza is much more laid back. She is perfectly content to just observe the world around her and take it all in. She watches Hazel play, watches the dog, watches her own hands and feet. She is very interested in watching us sign. Today I helped interpret part of Sacrament meeting and she didn't take her eyes off me once. She's also such a patient little girl. We love, love, love having her in our family. Her ultrasound is Tuesday and we're just praying all goes well.

Here she is watching football with Daddy...
Check out her hair:) It's all fallen out on just the one side. The strange thing is that's the side she doesn't like turning her head to so she normally lies on the other side. You'd think it would be the other way around.

Crazy Week

This past week has been a crazy one but it's also been filled with many tender mercies from the Lord.

Monday I came home to find our apartment complex surrounded by the SWAT team. When I tried to pull in the officer told me I couldn't get in the parking lot and they were in the process of evacuating one of the buildings. Ours of course. They evacuated Mike and the girls out the back side of the building because there was a standoff between a man (charged with stealing firearms) and the police on the front side. Crazy! Thankfully we have wonderful friends who not only let us crash at their house out of the cold for a few hours but also fed us an amazing dinner. In the end the man came out peacefully and didn't have any guns on him. His brother lives in our apartment complex and tipped the cops off that he would be coming over (so at least the robber guy didn't live here). The tender mercy in this situation- I was outside the complex when they closed it down. If I hadn't been, we would have been evacuated with no car and two small children in the 30 degree weather.

The next crazy point of the week was our hot water heater. Beginning last Saturday we realized it had stopped working and called maintenance. They re-lit the pilot light so at least we had hot showers for Church on Sunday. Monday morning I went to shower and there was not hot water again. They realized the problem was with the part that keeps the pilot light lit but had to order the part. The maintenance guy would periodically come by and re-light it, but essentially we never knew if we would have hot water or not from Monday until Thursday night. Tender mercy - we had hot water every time we really needed it (more on why we needed it below).

Wednesday afternoon, Hazel threw up. Not that big of a deal - she throws up a lot. She was a pukey baby and any time she gets a little cough she tends to puke still. Well Thursday night she threw up again and again. Then Eliza started. The dreaded stomach bug! Poor Eliza got the worst of it. I ended up taking her to the doctor Friday night just to make sure she wasn't too dehydrated. Thankfully she was doing okay. Tender mercies in this one - we had hot water every time baths were required, we have a washer and dryer in our apartment, I only got a very mild version of it so I was able to take care of the girls, and we've all feeling better now. Best of all, since the girls are better but couldn't go to nursary so as not to spread germs and Mike is busy with Elder's quorum stuff during third hour, I got a sub for nursary and actually went to Relief Society today!

I'm so thankful for all those little blessings that make weeks like this one bearable. I'm also thankful for an awesome husband who helped out a ton and took care of two sick, puking kiddos all day Friday.

Halloween!

Halloween this year was a blast! For the first time Hazel really understood a holiday and it was so much fun to see her enjoy everything.

Friday before Halloween we went up to the party at my parent's ward. Hazel is in a phase where she LOVES to dance. Naturally she was having a blast at the cake walk ....


Haha. She literally danced in the middle like that for about 15 minutes! I'm glad we decided to go to their party because on Saturday Hazel came down with a nasty cold. Our ward party was only outside and it was really chilly so we skipped it. By Monday it had warmed up and Hazel was feeling better so we took her trick or treating. She wanted to go to Cristy's house (our Bishop's wife) so we drove down to their neighborhood. At first she just asked for Cristy at each house but then she realized she was getting candy. After she every house she would say "Let's do one more!"

She also LOVED the fact that she got to dress up (and pretty much hasn't stopped dressing up since). For the ward party she was a 50's girl and she was a princess on Halloween. She now thinks she is a princess any time she wears a dress (which is almost daily. She even sleeps with a petti-skirt over her pjs).

All the while this cute little lady bug enjoyed the ride.