I don’t normally post personal things on my blog, I stick to reblogging books, coffee, and artistic shots. However this is something absolutely amazing and life changing for my family so I thought I’d share.
My partner and I are both carriers of a rare gene mutation that can be recessive in families for generations. In our case neither of our families have had someone deaf in over 7 generations until, our daughter Aubrey. Our risk was increased since we were carriers of the same gene, that causes hearing loss giving us a 25% chance for every child we have to be born with hearing loss. Aubrey was our first child and she was born with severe hearing loss.
She got her first pair of hearing aids at 4 weeks old, where they didnt allow her to hear speech sounds but helped her hear louder sounds, like a coffee grinder or a vacuum. It brought out a big change in her, almost like she came to life. At 10 months old we traveled to Sick Kids Hospital where she received bilateral cochlear implant surgery. She amazed us again. The surgery did not affect her mood, or her energy. Still one happy little girl. A month later we activated her implants and we’ve been watching her start to understand when people are talking vs environmental sounds.
Today she said her first word. This is a huge thing for us. 3 months after activation, 3 months of hearing what words sound like and she’s starting to use them. She still loves to use her sign language, and we hope to continue with that forever. But today we saw that she will also achieve speech. And we are so so thankful.
Merry Christmas, everyone.