Kelly, 5 years old, written by her mother Terri

Since I had been on bed rest for 2 1/2 months, when our daughter Kelly was born 5 years ago, we were thrilled to have a beautiful, healthy baby. We watched her and checked everything about her while in the hospital room; 10 fingers, 10 toes, her dad's eyes. I remember being thankful to see her jump when someone threw an empty can of soda into a metal trash can. Our first "hearing test" seemed to show that she was OK. Because of her older brother's hearing loss, Kelly had routine hearing tests done every 3-6 months. (Kyle also had normal hearing until about age 2 when his dropped. After three years of numerous fluctuations his hearing is now 70 dB in his left ear, 90dB in his right. The specialists feel that they have a shared auto-immunological condition.) We were feeling great about Kelly's progress; she was a perfectly normal infant hitting all of the standard milestones in behavior and development. We really never thought that we would have another child who would see their hearing drop; we thought that Kyle's situation was sort of a strange phenomenon. When Kelly was about 17 months, I started seeing a change in her responsiveness and I feared the worst. We had another ABR done and it showed her hearing level at severe to profound- 90 dBs- in both ears. I think that I was in shock there in the hospital. Of course our dear audiologist, who had been through so much with us through all of Kyle's fluctuations, began to cry, but I didn't. I just knew she would get through this somehow. Kelly was fitted with bilateral hearing aids the next week and just like her brother, went through countless hours of AV therapy, regular speech therapy and was treated just like a normally hearing child at home. She was holding her own in language development as she went into her third year, but we were beginning to see her level off when she approached her fourth birthday. We began to think about a cochlear implant. We knew we wanted her to be able to continue to be oral and learn in a regular educational setting, and we could see that with just her aids she may not be able to do that.

It still was a huge decision for us. She was a great hearing aid user and as I said, was doing fairly well with her language acquisition. I think what made our decision was when I sat with her AV therapist during some of her testing (in July '99) and saw how she struggled to understand what to do. She could not get the questions without being able to lip read and was miserable. She scored at about 2 years below her age that day. Her therapist said, "Terri, she needs an implant." I knew that day she was right. What bothered me the most was not the score of her test; it was the frustration that I saw in her. She was always like a ray of sunshine with her happy nature and I couldn't bear the thought of seeing her change in her personality.

And so the process of finding not only the right center, the right surgeon, the right implant team, and of course the right implant began. We did our homework; although we did it quickly as we felt time was of the essence. We decided on MCV Hospital here in our home of Richmond and we decided on MED-EL. We have made some great decisions in our 13 years of marriage and some horrible ones, but these two rank up there as the two best we have ever made. Kelly was implanted on October 1, 1999 at age 4 1/2 and was activated on November 11, 1999. Without sounding trite, this implant has changed Kelly's and our lives forever.

I could write for pages telling stories about things that we have marveled at over this last year. I'll briefly share a few of the best....

Having her say "Why are you saying 'shhh' mommy?" (as she was watching TV). "I didn't". "Yes, you did." Then I realized she had heard me pushing the nozzle on the can of Pledge while I was dusting.

Calling up from the kitchen to ask her (while she was getting dressed in her room upstairs), what she wanted for breakfast and having her say "Fruit Loops!".

Having her hold a 5 minute+ conversation with her grandmother on the phone and understanding every word (I listened on the other phone with tears running down my cheeks).

Riding back from the beach this past summer and listening to she and her brother carry on a normal sibling conversation.

During the same trip, having her talk non-stop from the NC border to just outside Richmond. "Does she ever stop to take a breath?" asked Kyle.

Having her say... "I love to talk......all the time."

Scoring at or above age level in Oct. 2000 on the same battery of speech and language tests she was 2 1/2 years behind in July 1999.

Hearing she and her best friend playing in the den and conversing like normal 5 year olds. I never once had to run interference and "help" her to understand or to be understood.

Beginning kindergarten this fall without a worry in the world, holding her own with her hearing peers, learning to read, reciting all of the songs her teacher has sung that day word for word...

My husband and I do not go a day without being reminded of what a miracle this is. Our only regret is that we did not get it for her sooner.

Thanks for letting me share our story! We hope that it helps in some way.

Sincerely,

Terri C.

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