Savanah's Story: Small steps in a BIG world.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Small steps in a BIG world.

Today I had the wonderful opportunity of going into Savanah's mainstreamed Kindergarten class and talk to her classmates about her cochlear implant. Another parent came along with me to represent her daughter as well.

I have to admit I was a little nervous. NERVOUS about talking to 5 year olds. I stood at the front of the class and felt so massive. It has been that long ago that I use to sit where they were.

I called Cochlear about a week ago and asked if they could send some resources for the class to help them understand better what a cochlear implant was. And they sent coloring books with a wonderful story about "Kaci the Koala" and how she got her implant. It also explains the entire process with surgery and the mapping appointments that followed afterwards. With the coloring books I typed up a little note and stapled them to each one to send home with the other students. I wrote to the other parents about cochlear implants and urged them if they had the time to sit down with their child and go over the book with them. I told them to let them know that everyone is different but we can all be friends.

The kids were darling. Very polite and receptive to everything we each had to say. We avoided big words and let them ask the questions. We let Savanah and Ellie stand up and show their implants off. We also let them pass around their stuffed animals the cochlear implant companies sent them when they recieved their implants. The kids thought they were cool. They had noticed that Savanah and Ellie didnt't quite talk right but seemed to be uneffected by this.

I was so happy to see children being respectful and open minded. They were happy to listen and happy to learn. They raised their hands so high to ask questions and also answer, and although it was a brief ten-minute presentation - I hope it is one that will stay with them their entire lives.

2 comments:

Nicole said...: Oh Sarah! I am so glad it went well! Young children can be so sweet!; September 17, 2009 at 1:26 PM
Laura said...: How great is it that Savanah has another child in her class with an implant! That's great!; September 24, 2009 at 9:41 PM

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CMV, Hearing loss and Cochlear Implants

Some of you who have read our family blog are already familiar with Savanah's story. But I decided to start an entirely different blog dedicated to Savanah's journey. Her triumphs, challenges and this wonderful adventure we are all on together. Savanah failed her newborn hearing screening when she was born. We were told that she had fluid still in her ears since she was two weeks early. I brought her back to be re-tested six weeks later, and she failed again. I was told she was deaf and I was completely devastated. We have no hearing loss in our family and so she was tested through a blood test for many different things that could have caused deafness. It took several weeks for the results to come back. I had this perfect little baby who might have something wrong with her. The test that we had to wait on was called the "TORCH" test. The letters in it stands for a few common viruses and illnesses that cause deafness and the "C" stands for cytomegalovirus. Most of us have had this virus which is in the herpes family, but when contracted during pregnancy if you have never had it before can cause deafness, blindness, seizures, brain calcifications and learning disabilities and even death. When her results came back positive with this virus, our entire summer with our brand new Savanah consisted of many different doctor appointments. Traveling to Primarys, the U, ENT's, audiologists etc. It was extrememly exhausting, particularly because there was so much unknown regarding cytomegalovirus. We learned from a neurologist at the U that she would continue to shed the virus through her urine until she was about six months old and that particuarly children who had never had the virus could become infected. We had to take many precautions to make sure that did not happen.

At the six month mark Savanah recieved a hearing aid in Sept. of 04 and after a year, we noticed she was making very little progress with her speech. I started looking into alternative answers to help her to hear. We were learning sign langage as a family but it was difficut for some members of our family to learn and Savanah really wasn't very interested in signing. I wanted people to be able to comunicate with Savanah and have relationships with her. We decided a cochlear implant would be awesome and allow her to hear like a normal individual when on. Savanah recieved the cochlear implant surgery on April 13, 2007. It was such a wonderful day, the start to something big.The surgery took about an hour and a half. She recovered beautifully. She was riding her bike later that day. The incision was rather long and very easy to take care of. She was just like any other 3 year old during the recovery until she could be activated. She was activated on May 20, 2007 and since then has been a hearing girl when it is on. I highly encourage everyone who reads this blog to research cochlear implants and learn more about them. I have added some links below. Savanah has attended school through Utah Schools for the Deaf for three years. She is now catching up to her appropriate age for language and is a thriving, healthy and happy eight-year old. We are so proud of her everyday! She is mainstreaming 100% in our neighborhood school. She is on grade-level with her third grade class and loves to learn! She is a wonderful reader and always gets PERFECT scores on her spelling.

She just recently received her second cochlear implant, she was implanted on January 9th, 2013 at the University of Utah by Dr. Shelton again. The surgery went smooth and recovered quickly. She was activated on January 20th, 2013 and has absolutely loved having a second implant. She now wears two BRAND NEW N5 processors from Cochlear.