ELLIOT & OLIVER'S STORY

Our story began on January 4, 2001 when our third child, Elliot Russell was born deaf. Our first two children were born with normal hearing so it was quite a shock. He was given 9 and 9 apgar scores and weighed 8 lbs. 3 oz. He was healthy except for a problem with gagging, for which he was treated in the NICU for a couple of days. During that time (when we were worried about other things) he received the routine screening for hearing loss. He did not pass, but we were told not to be alarmed because it could be fluid in his ears, etc. Elliot soon joined his family at home-- two brothers, Nicholas and Alexander, and mom and dad, Amy and Kevin. I think we went through years of research in only a few months, reading books, going to conferences, and talking to people online and in person. We grieved, and we waited anxiously. We used high powered hearing aids, but to no avail.

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"The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important, than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune. For it means the loss of the most vital stimulus--the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir and keeps us in the intellectual company of man." Helen Keller

(Recent criticism about Helen Keller and her idea tries to refute the concept that deafness separates individuals from others because of language barriers. However, I challenge those who think that this is untrue: are manually communicating deaf people able to speak to everyone in their community, their extended family, their places or worship, and their schools without difficulty? Without interpreters, TTYs, captioning? When I think of the separation, I mean from most people, not the few who share a manual language.)

Elliot has no measurable hearing and is considered profoundly deaf. We grieved about this, just like most hearing parents who receive the news that their child is not able to hear. He received his first cochlear implant at nine months of age, at Riley Children's Hosital in Indianapolis; his surgeon was Dr. Richard Miayamoto. In the months leading up to his surgery, we spent time reading and speaking with people on CI circle and came to the conclusion that we wanted the CI, and we wanted it quickly. We enjoyed him, we loved him, we played with him-- but we longed to be able to speak to him and sing him lullabies.

In the first 2.5 years after his implant was activated and we moved to Colorado, Elliot received weekly Auditory-Verbal Therapy (AV) along with extensive AV practice at home. Elliot was very quickly equal to or ahead of his hearing peers in both expressive and receptive language skills. At age five, Elliot received his second (bilateral) implant. We pursued the bilateral implant for three primary reasons: improved ability to determine the direction from which sound is coming (localization), improved ability to listen to a specific person speaking in a noise filled space, and hearing redundancy. The hearing redundancy is important in case one device were to fail and need to be replaced. Elliot would not have to be without hearing during this period of time. Elliot is making steady progress with his second CI but it is definitely taking him longer to adjust. In our mind, this helps validate the research showing that early implantation is best. Fortunately, there is a certain amount of "crossover" effect which allows even teenagers to benefit from the 2nd implant when they have been enjoying one for many years. This means that, even if the child were to experience a failure of the internal device (or even a brief technical problem, externally) they would be able to hear during that time.

I would be remiss if I didn't say that the time after he was implanted continued to be stressful as I cared for 3 boys, drove to AV weekly, and worried about whether the CI would work, etc. Every parent naturally worries, but every word and phrase felt like a milestone! We were thrilled and relieved when he reached his same aged peers, and began to relax more about language development. When we moved to GA, Elliot no longer needed AV. We have always believed that reading assists language development, and so like his older brothers, Elliot has been read to a LOT. That has probably made a big difference in his vocabulary and grammar. It is the same for any child, really.

A parent is worth 10,000 schoolmasters. -Chinese proverb

Our fourth child, Oliver Emmanuel, was born on Mother's Day (May 14) 2006. He received his first implant at six months of age and his second at 11 1/2 months of age. Both surgeries took place at Children's Hospital of Atlanta, with Dr. N. Wendell Todd as the surgeon. He is responding very well and shows signs that he will make quick progress. A baby's brain is so flexible with most of the neural paths still being formed. Stimulating the auditory nerve during this critical period makes a huge difference in realizing the child's full potential. Oliver was on the path to receiving his first implant within the first week of his life. Oliver has been in AV therapy since he was a few weeks old. See updates on the "Our Latest News" page to see how well he's doing! Interestingly, the newer ASSR testing on Oliver showed that he had no residual hearing to 120 db. He would likely not have benefitted much if at all from hearing aids and would have struggled with spoken language without CIs.

I should also add that this site is not designed, really, for deaf adults. While some of our links may be useful for deaf adults, their situations are unique, whether they are prelingually deaf or dealing with late onset hearing loss. This is also not a forum for debating cochlear implants, and we are fully supportive of them. There are many blogs and forums for this sort of debate, but we have already made our choice and are happy with that; also, this website is to celebrate our kids. We accept private emails asking for information, support and help.

Elliot and Oliver both have Medel devices.