Anyway, he underwent the series of speech tests and at the end, the audiologist informed me that he did NOT need any therapy. Why? He scored very high on ALL the tests. It was due to his having worn his hearing aids very successfully and due to the slow progressive of hearing loss which helped his brain to quickly pick up and to distinguish the CI sounds easily. Yes, he still sees his school’s speech/language pathologist for speech articulation.

He’s doing very well with his CI. He asked for 2nd CI and he was told to wait until 6 months have passed before he could be considered for 2nd CI (this coming summer of 2010, I believe.) Next month he has a 3rd month mapping session which he’d have an audiology testing to determine at what dB level he can hear with his CI.

The experience has been interesting for me, to observe David undergoing the cochlear implantation, recovery, activation, and mapping.  Three weeks ago, he had a minor surgical procedure which he had the magnet planted against his skull and electrodes in his cochlea, leaving a small scar right behind his ear.  Three weeks later, this past Thursday, we woke up early in the morning for a 30-minute drive to the hospital.  We waited for several minutes and three audiologists came to us and took us to the therapy room.  David sat next to the desk where the computer was, with three audiologists seated before desk, ready to observe him and to take notes, and an interpreter sat next to me.

The audiologist handed the CI device to David for him to put on.  He had a few seconds of confusion of locating the magnet and when attached, the audiologist started the program.  She tested to see if all electrodes (22 electrodes) worked, no circuit shorts, etc.  They worked beautifully.  David was not hearing anything at the moment.  Then he was told he’d be hearing “beep”s  as the audiologist tested each electrode to see if he responded to each.  He raised his hand as he heard the beep… he responded to all electrodes, which meant all electrodes were fully inserted in his cochlea.

Then the next step was to have David to respond and to inform when the “beep” from each electrode got a bit loud for the audiologist to establish the maximum comfort and threshold levels.  It went for about an hour, which was a little boring for him… enough for him to become fidgety in the chair.  The reason for the slowly establishing the threshold/maximum comfort levels is to prevent to overload the brain when the CI is activated.  That was the initial mapping.

He was asked if he was ready for the activation and he said yup.  She turned it on and at first he heard nothing.  Then she turned the volume up a bit… he heard little.  She turned it up more and then he reacted, by laughing shortly and claiming it was weird.  He heard us talking… we sounded like cars honking and geese honking to his brain.  We were told to expect the sounds to sound robotic or Donald Duffy’s voice.  Then the audiologists showed us the box containing the twinkles and bells of the CI device (another processor intended to be used as back up, hooks, etc.)  Of course, David was fascinated with the box’s goods.  No, he did not show any discomfort nor pain; he acted it was cool, different. To observe his reaction (around the minute 2), you could observe the URL link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_wJ5VbqUg4

Then I drove him to school where he spent the rest of the day there with his CI on.  He came home and he immediately noticed that his sister had a high-pitched voice and that his father was a loud talker and it caused discomfort to him.  I suggested to him that he took the device off and he refused, preferring to leave it on.  OK.

The next day, we went back to the hospital, again, for the 2nd day of mapping, now that he had spent a full day wearing the CI device, giving his brain a chance to process the sound waves.  When his CI was activated, his brain interpreted the sound waves as sensations… the feelings/vibrations, so to speak.  His brain quickly interpreted the sensations into the levels of loudness, which became consonants.  The audiologists said that he quickly distinguished “s”, “sh”, “b”, and “m” so far, due to his being born with normal hearing.  So it’s more like for him to learn to ride a bike all over again after not riding it for years.  He had to sit through the 2nd mapping which was very much like the initial mapping… responding to “beep”s, etc.  The goal of mapping is to get him used to the increasing range of loudness (high and soft sounds) of each electrodes (pitches.)  He still hears people’s speech as car honking though.  He quickly came to appreciate music more with CI now, but he winces at the singing because it sounds like… car honking, and he’d rather listen to music without songs.

He will start the auditory therapy next Monday at school for 3 x a week, to train his brain to interpret that honk is short “i”, that honk is long “a”, so forth.  But so far, it has been a very good, positive start for him.  He told me that he wanted to get another CI next year.  Good, just wait until we get everything settled before he could proceed to another CI )

Obviously, CI benefits hard of hearing people, late deafened people (like David), and the babies who’d have to receive therapy (AVT) upon receiving the cochlear implantation.  David has shown no pain, no discomfort, no headache, no nausea so far, since the activation and the mappings.  The whole experience has been positive and I really appreciate it.

http://kokonutpundits.blogspot.com/2009/11/video-interview-caption-with-first.html

Thanks to neuro!

First of all, I want to state that I am NOT an expert in this subject I am about to blog about.

A friend emailed to me, with the links about a stem cell treatment for hearing loss for a late-deafened young adult.  The article, http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/rnl-bio-rescues-a-college-student-from-autoimmune-hearing-loss,1027683.shtml, states that the lady was losing her hearing to an autoimmune disease since she was 15 years old and that the doctors tried this “radical” stem cell treatment (harvesting the fat cells from the surrounding of the lady’s belly button and isolated the cells and had them sent to South Korea.  Then the family went to South Korea (due to FDA’s not approval of the adult stem cell treatment for hearing loss where the lady received the treatment via IV.)  It was an interesting article to read and I realized that it was just starting… stem cell treatment has succeeded in getting most of the hearing back to the young lady and so, what’s next?  I want to make it clear that the article discusses ADULT stem cell treatments, but we all know that sooner or later, stem cell research will venture into infants/children who lose their hearing due to autoimmune diseases or born deaf and stem cell treatments prove their ability to grow cilia (hairlike cells) in their cochlea.  It’s less invasive than cochlear implants, all right.  The majority of hearing parents WILL take this stem cell treatment for their deaf babies over subjecting them to CI surgeries, believe me.  I don’t know if the treatment will restore all, most, or some hearing to the infants/children… it all depends on the factors.

There is a YouTube vlog about it, but it’s not captioned.  You could check it out and ask someone to interpret it for you.

http://www.youtube.com/user/rnlbio#p…-A7LaM]YouTube

That’s about it.

Have a good day.

On October 22nd, on the first day of David’s fall break from school, I drove him to Riley Hospital for Children for his scheduled day surgery.   After checking in, we met with a young interpreter who looked like Ashton Kutcher.  David was dressed in the hospital gown and was led to a waiting room where we sat and chatted and watched TV (Cartoon Network’s “Scooby Doo” show.)  We waited for an hour and half for David’s staff to show up.  His surgeon’s resident doctor showed up… a man of Japanese descent asked a few questions and wrote “Yes” on his right ear.   Then an anesthesiologist showed up and asked a few questions and then asked what scent David would like… strawberry, bubble gum, grape, watermelon or Dr. Pepper?  David perked up at hearing “Dr. Pepper” (eww, in my mind ;o) )

Then the surgeon nurse came to walk  him to the OR (operating room.)  David suddenly grabbed my arm and tried pulling me with him.  I gently pried his hand off of my arm and hugged him and told him that I’d see him in the recovery room in a few hours.  I stood outside the doors, watching through the window a sight of him walking with the nurse and his interpreter who was dressed in bunny outfit who’d be with him in the OR until he fell asleep.  Then I left.

It was around 1:30 PM so I grabbed lunch at McDonald’s which was located on the first floor of the hospital and went upstairs to the surgery waiting room to eat there and to chat with the interpreter who himself was a CODA.  The surgeon came to us, about an hour and half later, to tell me that the surgery went very well; the procedure itself took 45 minutes and that David would be in the recovery room soon.  Several minutes later, a volunteer came and walked us to the recovery room where I saw him lying on the wheeler, naked chest with pads hooked up to the heart monitor and IV attached to his hand, breathing softly and looking peaceful.  He had a rubber turban around his head, with pressure gauze against his incision.  The incision was 1 1/2  inch long, on the back of his earlobe (exactly on where his ear is attached to his head.)  Not on his head.  That way, he’d have no scar on his head… only on the back of his ear.

He slowly woke up and asked if the CI was in and I said yes.  The nurse asked if he was feeling any pain and he said no.  She offered a Popsicle when he said he was thirsty.  Then he said he started feeling a throbbing on his incision area and the nurse said that he needed to take pain medication, since his body just started the process of healing and that the pain would soon hit him.  So he obliged and took the oral  medication (Tylenol with Codeine.)  The surgeon came and talked with David and David sincerely thanked him.  Then the nurse wheeled David out of the recovery room to the semi-private room to stay overnight.

The nurse handed him a menu and I was taken back by what the menu said… cheeseburger, pizzas, sandwiches, etc.  Right after the surgery?  I said nothing when he ordered a cheeseburger, french fries with cheese sauce on the side, and a chocolate milkshake.  When food came, he could not eat everything… ate some french fries with cheese sauce and drank milkshake.  Did not touch the cheeseburger.  He started complaining of tinnitus (the ringing in his right ear) and pain.  Then we settled to watch the DVD “City of Ember” which was good.  It was close to 10 PM and he was given another dosage of pain medication and settled to go to sleep.  I made myself comfortable in the lazyboy chair.

Around 2 AM, David woke me up and he said he wanted to go to bathroom, so I paged the nurse.  She took him out of bed and walked him to the bathroom in the hallway; he did not want me to go inside the bathroom but the nurse.  I stood outside of the bathroom,  surveying the nurses’ desk, the walls, the medical equipments, etc.  And smiling at the nurses who lounged around the desk who looked at me with a sort of pitying look on their faces.  Little did I knew that David was puking his dinner out in the bathroom and I could not hear it, huh.  He and the nurse came out and David said he threw up.  I quickly smelled chocolate milkshake from the bathroom.

He was led back to his bed, and was hooked up to the IV and the nurse gave him morphine and anti-nausea medication and he went back to sleep, holding my hand.  Then the resident doctor showed up at 6:30 AM to take off David’s rubber turban and I was impressed by the incision… I thought it would be worse but actually, it was not.  However, the medical schools should offer a beauty class, in cutting or/and shaving hair / .  David said that nausea was gone but had nonstop ringing in his ear.   He ordered breakfast  from the menu, but that time, he chose wisely.  Two slices of bacon, a small blueberry muffin, and cranberry juice and he kept everything down.  Then his surgeon and his resident doctor showed up and announced David’s incision was healing very nicely and started the procedure of discharging him… less than 24 hours stay at the hospital.

We came home by noon and he went to his computer to play computer games (as you’d notice the pix of him sitting before his PC.)  I went to Walgreen’s to buy antibiotics and Tylenol with Codeine for him.  The next day, we all went over to a friend’s house where my kids had fun and David did dancing there.  He was quickly back to his normal routine, handling his pain and tinnitus better.  Today this AM, armed with the doctor’s excuse slip from his gym class for two weeks, he left for school.

His activation date is in the middle of November.

David's first day at home with CI

Also, David’s Teacher of the Deaf in his mainstream middle school and I agreed, along with the school’s counselors, that she gave a short presentation about cochlear implant to his 7th grade team to make the students more aware of CI and to lessen the chances of teasing when David starts wearing the device next month.

He will receive Cochlear’s Nucleus 5, the newest product from Cochear.  You could check out the link:

http://www.cochlearamericas.com/nucleus5/

I will keep you updated on his surgery and his post-surgery adventure.

His first language is English, of course.  His communication preference is talking.  He does sign at home, but he rarely signs outside of home.  I do NOT have a problem with his choice of communication because he ALREADY has a language… he is very fluent in English and is in Honors English class at middle school (he’s full-time mainstreamed.)  He reads at high school level.  He does not have a signing interpreter; he goes by FM system and CART.  He gets A’s and B’s and NEVER receives any resource help… just speech therapy once a week, 20 minutes (during lunch.)  Also, he’s on a swim team.  His favorite downtimes are reading the novels and listening to music via Ipod.  A very typical 12-year-old boy.

Over the last few months, he had been complaining about his hearing aids… that they did not work very well, that the sounds sounded funny or/and softer or/and quieter (either way, depending on his mood), etc.  So the audiologist sent the aids to the shop and there were no problems with the aids.  Then we had David tested… the results showed an obvious drop in both low and high frequencies.  That is when he decided to go for CI, two months ago.

We set up an appointment with Riley Hospital, under IUPU (Indiana University/Purdue University.)  Last week we went there for an all-afternoon tests to determine his eligibility for CI.  I do recall two hearing tests… speech recognition test done in quiet background… he scored very low… 16%, a big change from his easily acing speech recognition tests when he was younger, above 50% oftentimes.  Another test… speech recognition in noisy background, he “flunked” the test.  I sat in the audiologist’s office, observing all the tests and pondering over my memories when he was normal hearing, then hard of hearing, then severely deaf, and now profoundly deaf.  After the battery of hearing tests, we went to radiology department to have David C-scanned (to make sure that his cochlea were normally formed.) Scoring less than 30% on the speech recognition tests is just one of prerequisites for the candidacy for CI.

The audiologist went inside the sound booth and informed David that he was a candidate for CI and he looked relieved to be informed of it… it’s what he wants.  The next day we had to come back to Riley Hospital, this time for an orientation.  Brian (my husband and David’s dad), David and I sat in the audiologist’s office, with an interpreter.  David ASKED a LOT of questions… hard questions.  Hmmm… he is aware that it is HIS ear, HIS body, etc., so he’s making sure that CI would benefit him in the long run.  The audiologist was very patient in answering the questions.  She also outlined the pros and the cons.  She did NOT try to “sell” the product CI to us.  She explained two different brands of CI… Nucleus Freedom and AB (Advanced Bionics) and really both are pretty much same.  I inquired about Med El and she said that it was experiencing device failures so it was off of the market for a time being.  She stated that FDA (Food and Drug Administration) required that any devices must show LESS than 2% failure to be on market.  If failure,  require to replace or to be removed at NO charge, less than 10 years.

She outlined the MINIMUM benefits: awareness to sounds in the environment; detection of sounds in the speech range (NOT speech understanding); improved speech reading ability; awareness of one’s own voice; and potential for improvement in speech intelligibility.  She made it VERY clear that it was the BRAIN that must interpret the sound and provide an individual with speech understanding, so it means David or anyone MUST receive therapy and that they wear CI all day/everyday in order to help retrain the brain.  To our surprise, she added that 1/2 of the CI recipients develop a DISLIKE of music.  Huh oh, because David LOVES music and he was on the choir when he was in elementary school.  The audiologist said that usually people developed love for music after learning to listen to music, etc. and that if people liked music before getting CI, they usually ended up liking music because of the brain’s memory.  She stressed that CI centered on speech.

AND… she explained the surgery which sounded simple.  A 2- to 3-inch incision behind the ear.  A small hole/pathway will be drilled into the inner ear.  No shaving/scraping on the skull, etc.  A tiny electrode array will be inserted.  Then the incision site will be closed and stitched together with dissolvable  stitches.  An overnight at the hospital. Come back to Riley Hospital in a month for activation.  Simple and forward.  She said that we’d need to meet with the CI surgeon (at the end of August) and he’d explain more about it.

AND she showed us the paperwork outlining the rare complications of the surgery and the common side effects.  The complications are listed as anesthesia complications; weakness of the face; hematoma; cerebrospinal fluid lead; infection, and meningitis (he already got the vaccination for meningitis last year.)  The side effects: skin numbness; taste disturbance; sore neck and back; dizziness; and tinnitus (especially for some people with residual hearing, so David might likely experience it until the activation day.)

The audiologist gave us a bunch of paperwork to go through and her email address for us to contact with any questions.  Overall, it was a very POSITIVE experience… testings and orientation.  We have a few months to sleep on this before meeting the CI surgeon.  We need to decide which CI brand, which ear he’d want to be implanted (the audiologist said that it was up to us to decide, since both ears showed the same degree of hearing loss), and of course, what color of CI ;o) .  Once we make the decision, we’d need to contact the audiologist of our decision and she’d send the paperwork to our insurance company for approval.

David will be attending an Youth Leadership Camp in two weeks and I told him to be sure to talk to the kids with CI, to ask for their experiences, etc.  This camp will be his third time and it is usually consisted of mainstreamed deaf kids who choose speaking and listening over signing and the majority of the campers have CI.  Recently one of his classmates got a CI and the classmate loved it, and the parents stated that the recent audiogram showed the speech recognition at 15 dB… impressive.

That’s about it.  I know this blog is a bit long one, but at least it’s pretty forward, no bashing around the bushes, no conspiracy like some pro-Deaf people claim, etc.

We will make the decision in a few weeks.

Stay tuned for part 2, in a few months likely.

Anyway, vampires… very mysterious and very exciting.  Even women swooned over Bram Stroker’s novel.  Movies after movies.  But one thing that hits me strongly… vampires appear to be fixed and trapped in their characters… not changing.   I read “New Moon” all day this past Saturday and I really liked Jacob because of his changing character.  So his character is fluid, hot,  and organic.  Compared to Jacob, Edward is inorganic (diamond-like glistening in the sun, hard as marble, etc.) icy, and fixed.

I’d like to say one thing about New Moon’s werewolves.  They, in my opinion, highlight the problem of steriods and teenage boys and young men in early 20′s, especially in sports.  Wrestling and bodybuilders keep getting bigger and their tempers more short… like those werewolves.  Yes, I know that there were no steriods involved in the werewolves, but it shows a similarity, nothing more.  Jacob shows inner struggles, bound to his tribe and to the ancient covenant, yet in love with a girl whose heart belonged to someone else who happened to be a vampire, which his DNA decreed that Jacob had to destroy the vampires.

I give Bella a credit for rolling her eyes at the tension between them at her house… it is so much like a dog and a cat.  Or rather in this case, a cougar and a wolf snarling, hissing, growling at each other over the human girl.

Before leaving the subject audism behind (just hearing it being taken apart and taken together again,  being debated over and over… makes my eyes glaze over), I want to say one last thing about it.   The way I see it, people choose to be survivors or victims.   In choosing to be victims, people just channel their anger and pain into activism, choosing not to see the whole picture, right or wrong.  In choosing to be survivors, they are able to move past their anger and pain to make the best of their lives.  We all have choices; it is how we make them.  For the last time, I don’t support DBC and AFA because I draw a line at how they recruit people and I feel that they allow emotions influence their strategic decision making.

Anyway,  to update on my gardening, the seedlings are growing, as you see the photo of muslin lettuce seedlings )  I just planted curly parsley seeds in the cardbox lunch box from which I ate salad from the Whole Foods Market today.  A few weeks ago, as an afterthought, I tossed the moldy Idaho potatoes into the storage container of compose soil and bingo… the eyes apparently sprouted, and now growing the leaves, as you see the photo.  I promised my daughter that she’d plant sunflower seeds so next month, May will do it.

My husband and I agreed to make a few changes in our lifestyle… to eat less meats and to eat more ORGANIC foods, especially vegetables and fruits.  We consume most most foods lacking in enzymes, which our bodies badly need.  Lack of enzymes (destroyed by preservations, chemicals, and irradiation/pasturation) lead to the rising number of cancer cases.  We are aware that organic  foods are expensive, but hey!  Once committed, stay committed.  We are reading the book called “Healthy Habits: 20 Simple Ways to Improve Your Health” written by David and Anne Frahm.  It is a simple, easy to read book.  However, I draw a line at enemas… nah… I won’t do it, UNLESS I have to do it.  Might be a good idea for my husband…something to check into…hmmm… he’d need to see a colonics professional, I won’t  do it for him, no thanks.

That’s about it.

http://www.deafvideo.tv/video/watch/43909/

I like the idea of the public apology.  Now, if AGBell issued the apology, it would likely bring a closure to MANY people who had and have suffered under AGBell’s influence.  It would enable us to move forward with our goals for the Deaf community, for the Deaf babies, for ensuring ASL in its rightful place in America for both hearing and deaf people.

Right now, the communication is slowly and carefully being forged between two leaders, Barry Sewall and Ella Mae Lentz.  They are setting an example for us, that communication is ALWAYS a key for bringing many things on the table and being able to deal with things, listening to each other’s different perspective and VALIDATING each other’s feelings and perspective.  And the healing usually starts.  It can be slow or fast, depending on the time and willingness they have.  I am impressed.  It made me realize how much we ALL have lost time just by taking sides.  Even the leaders are guilty of taking sides and encouraging the rifts… we are not not much any different from others.

Now, the Vatican issued a formal apology to the Jews for its lack of involvement in the Holocaust in Europe  a few years ago… many years after the World War II ended.  I am sure it helped  many Jews and their organizations to be able to move on.  So, if AGBell issed the apology, do you think it would enable us to move forward?  Do you think it would open up communication lines between the Deaf organizations such as DBC/AFA and AGBell?  Success usually occurs with an active listening and a willingness to make negotations and a willingness to be committed to make things work.

ASLFREEDOM vlogged about it: http://www.deafvideo.tv/video/watch/43937/