The Video

The video of Colton being "turned on" is at this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz6O8BBa9us

Be warned that it is not all warm and fuzzy. He cries...a lot. But you can really see his reaction to being able to hear.

The Big Day, Getting "Turned On"

It was a very special day today. I don't want to forget anything about it. I am trying to get the video up and running, but it will take more tweaking. Give me some time. I had a lot of nervous energy this morning while we waited for 3:00 to arrive. I put on some music and cleaned my house. Even the bathrooms. When it was finally time to leave, I had to wake Colton up from his nap. I hate that. We went right back and we started in the high chair. The black cord you see in the picture is what is used to program the processor. He won't always have that cord hanging down.

The first tone he heard he reached up and grabbed at the implant. She did tones in different ranges. Some high, some low. By the 3rd tone, Colton was in tears. He was crying and crying. It was very dramatic!

This picture is between tones. You can see he is a little bit apprehensive because he just heard something that he has never heard before.
We decided to get Colton out of the highchair and see if he would be a little calmer with Mom. Here Grandpa is trying to help calm him down.
We took a break between ears to give Colton a chance to adjust to the first ear. He kept it on pretty well while we walked around and soon wasn't crying too much. We put the other side on and his responses were still big, but not so teary. By the end, she was able to have him up where she wanted him and he wasn't quite so sensitive to the noise.
Over the next few days I will turn him up every day. We want to introduce the sound very slowly. Next Thursday we will go back and she will turn him up even more. Colton isn't responding to every little sound yet, but he is definitely hearing more that he ever did with hearing aids.


Here are our cochlear implant cases. One for each ear, and yes, they are full of stuff.
Extra ear hooks, mesh covers for the microphones, power cables, batteries, special screw drivers, drying kits, extra cables, carrying cases. This is definitely an investment because when we run out of anything, we have to order more...for the rest of his life!

I will keep working on getting some video up. It wasn't all warm and fuzzy like you see on YouTube. It was stressful, and a little sad. I hate seeing my child scream and cry like he is in pain. I know that he will adjust, that it will get better, we just need to be patient. Colton is one amazing little boy. I can't imagine what it would be like to go from absolute silence to noise in an instant. Because it was in an instant. As soon as the coil touched his head he would jump and scream. But even being stressful and a little sad, it is amazing. And the last video we took was Colton laughing and smiling while he pushed a ball down the hall. And I saw him when he realized that he could hit the ball and it made a noise. That is what I am looking forward to...watching him see the world in a different way. A world with sound.