Sunday, February 21, 2010

Happy 3rd birthday, Kevin's ears!

Today is Kevin's 3rd hearing birthday. It is crazy to think that 3 years has passed already since he first heard our voices. Never in my wildest dreams would I think that he would be where he is right now. I mean, he talks non-stop, completely articulate, and has an incredible vocabulary. Our life, to any outsider, would be very normal. In most ways, it is. Kevin is almost 4, loves all things 'boy': bike riding, swimming, playing in mud, pirates, guns, star wars, monster trucks, etc. We do have our daily challenges, but what I have learned over the past 3 years is that every family has challenges. In some ways, ours might be more difficult, but this is our life as we know it, and therefore it is normal to us. Today, for instance, we all went skiing. I still find bike and ski helmets EXTREMELY frustrating to put on over a CI and not constantly knock it off! So, today, I had to keep putting the coil back on and testing if Kevin could hear me, so it was definitely more challenging than our older son who can just slide his own helmet on and hear me all the time. BUT, I could talk to Kevin all the way up the lift and down the mountain and tell him to turn, do 'pizza', and 'stop'. Even though we had more of a challenge today, our life was normal too and it never amazes me that I can communicate with Kevin on this level.

Kevin recently had a hearing in noise test done and with a signal/noise ratio of 55/60 he scored a 96%. What an amazing little boy!!!

So, if I could just invent helmets that work great for CIs, we would be all set. :)

Happy Hearing Birthday, Kevin!!!