Myah's New Ear :)

Yay, Myah has a new ear! On her activation day it was amazing to hear her describe what she was experiencing as her Implant was powered up. Last time she was implanted she was too young to tell us anything about her experience. Her audiologist told us that she was giving text book answers to what happens during the activation.

First, she told us that she thought she felt (vibrations) something. A couple of minutes later she told us she thought she heard something, but wasn't sure if it was in her head or if she was actually hearing. After she said that I thought about how crazy it would be to not be sure if you were hearing something. How many times have I had conversations or sung a song in my head? Okay, I may be sounding crazy, but really, think about it! Myah's new ear is LITERALLY learning how to hear. Anything that goes into it right now is "mumbo jumbo". Even two weeks into the learning process she can't completely understand the test sounds that audiologists use to make sure a patient is hearing all frequencies. They are called the 6 Ling Sounds and they consist of: Oooo, Eeee, Ahhh, Shhh, Ssss, Mmmm. I would say she can only identify them 50% correctly.

At the end of the appointment that day Myah stood up and felt dizzy. Her audiologist said that this is common and told Myah to turn down the volume and when she was ready she could turn it back up. 20 minutes later she didn't feel dizzy and could feel the vibration in her head so she turned the volume up. Another 20 minutes later she was worried that her new processor was broken because she couldn't feel the vibrations anymore. So she took off her "good, old" processor to test the new one. She was looking down and I started to clap my hands in a rythmic motion. She did not respond. Then she put the old processor back on and asked me if I had been laughing. She said she heard "huh, huh, huh, huh" repeating it in the same rythym that I had clapped my hands. Spencer and I were excited and told her that she had heard me clapping.

It is so cool how miraculous the human body is. In 1-2 hours Myah's ear had adjusted to it's new sensation and Myah was hearing sound. Not sound that she could pin point or specifically identify, but she was definitely hearing something. It was also refreshing to see Myah's natural curiousity come out. It reminded me of the first day of her first implant when she was stomping and pounding things to hear them. She was craving the new sensation and wanted more. This tells me that she will be successful with her new implant. Something that we were worried about since Myah is growing close to puberty age when the brain starts to lose plasticity making it difficult to adjust to and succeed with a new Cochlear Implant.

On our follow up visit Myah's audiologist was thrilled with Myah's progress in one week and we are working hard everyday to rehab the new ear and help get Myah to where this second implant will really benefit her. It will be about a year before she is understanding words so we have a long road ahead of us.