Technology at it's best- Cochlear Implants

First surgery- right ear- February 2008

Second surgery- left ear- November 2010

After listening to the final discussions last night about the ever changing technology, I thought after my comment about how many people I may have confused. I heard your comments about new operating systems, different technologies and such and I spoke about the wonderful technological invention called a Cochlear Implant or CI for short. My two older children were born with a profound hearing loss. My daughter failed her newborn hearing screening and my husband and I took her to get re-tested at CHOP. We were shocked and devastated to find out about her hearing loss. No one in either family for as far back as we could find had a hearing impairment. After going through genetic testing, we discovered that my husband carried a gene mutation as did I, and we both passed recessive genes to end up with a hearing impaired child. Connexin 26 is the cause of the hearing loss. My son came along 18 months later and was also found to have the genetic mutation. We found out that my husband and I had a 1 in 300,000 chance of meeting each other and having two deaf children.... I should have played the lottery!!

Anyway, hearing aids were tried with both children and didn't work. We opted for the Cochlear Implant. After going through a candidacy program with CHOP we got the call that both kids were eligible for CI's. As I said last night, their first implant (right ear) was the Freedom by Cochlear, which they both thrived with. Just shortly after they were implanted, the Nucleus 5 came on the market and when my children were implated the second time (left ear) they received the Nucleus 5 which offers better sound quality and it's smaller.

Both children are doing so well. It's amazing how far we have come from earlier hearing aids and CI's to what we have now. My children are actually hearing at an almost normal hearing range, something my husband and I never thought would happen. Cochlear is constantly looking for ways to improve the device, and possibly someday a device will be invented that is completely internal. We were told by the team at CHOP that deafness will become obsolete with all of the technologies offered.

Below is a video of a child having her cochlear implant turned on for the first time. Watch her reaction. To have lived something similar to this with my own two children is amazing. Their activation was exactly like below. TECHNOLOGY AT IT'S BEST!