Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Very quiet day yesterday for my daughter

And, not by choice. I got a phone call from Delaney around 2:00 saying her hearing aid battery had died, and asking me to run her up a new one. I was driving Trey home from school, and in the middle of painting a room so I decided she could wait the hour until she got home from school to change it (since she had her cochlear implant as well). She's supposed to have extra batteries in her backpack for this very reason. About 3:00 our neighbor (who gives the girls a ride to school), came over with something one of the girls had left in the car- yep, you guessed it. Delaney's implant. I could just kill her. She is so careless with it, and in this case, since her hearing aid was not working, she really needed it.

Hopefully she learned something from this experience, but I'm not so sure. I'm really at my wits end with her. If her aided ear continues to lose residual hearing, her implant will be her main hearing device. I wish she would understand this and take it a bit more seriously. And for all of you who are proponents of not implanting your children, etc. Delaney has from day one refused to consider learning any ASL as a back-up. She is strictly a verbal communicator/lover (which in all honesty is what we have stressed), but she needs to come to the realization that there is a VERY strong possibility that her hearing aid will no longer work for her at some point in her future. Why not embrace the cochlear implant now? She's already done the really tough part (the surgery), and she hears quite well with it.

Sorry for the rant- just frustrated w/ my daughter today -LOL!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So she had been at school all day with just the hearing aid, but you didn't know it at the time when you got the call that she needed batteries?

Oy! I can see why you'd be frustrated. So did she just rely on lipreading?

I'm curious as to what her day was like without any hearing? LOL! Kids are so funny.

Sam said...

Hmmm, how intriguing - I personally cannot bear to be without sound!! I feel so much more vulnerable and will go out of my way to go and find some more batteries (even if I never seem to remember to carry any spares - duh!)

It makes me wonder whether your daughter feels as though she is getting any benefit from the implant or the hearing aid or whether she feels that she can do with out them!! I wonder how she got on that day.

Loudest Mom said...

Correct :) When I decided to let her be without her hearing aid for an hour, I knew she had her implant with her (since I sent her out of the house with it on her head). Somehow it wound up in my neighbors car (I think???? maybe in the house?). I didn't realize that until the kids were basically getting ready to get on the school bus to come home.
I asked her this morning how it was yesterday afternoon without her hearing aid, etc. She said it was cutting in and out, so she was picking up pieces here and there. For the last 20 minutes she couldn't here anything- but she is a CHAMPION lip reader, so she said she managed o.k. She did say she hated every minute of it though :)

She refuses to be without her hearing aid, which is part of the challenge with the implant. I think she is so reliant on her aid, that she kind of uses her implant as a 'back-up' (if that makes sense). She also cannot stand not being able to hear (to the point that after swimming she puts her aid in so fast that she winds up with swimmers ear all the time :)