Our C.I. princess waiting patiently
Lily was activated bilaterally on June 12, 2013! We had the onesie in the picture made for her for this very occasion. She is our beautiful little C.I. princess!
There were quite a few people there for this momentous occasion. We were all very excited to see how Lily would react to her first sounds. Lisa, Lily's audiologist, took about 15 minutes to get everything ready before we went into the room for the activation (when you see the pictures of the boxes you will understand why it took so long). We walked in to see two large boxes displaying the name Advanced Bionics Neptune on the sides. These were the boxes that Lily's processors and all of her accessories came in. Talk about overwhelming!
The Neptune boxes
Lisa jumped right into explaining everything to us from how to put everything together and take it all apart to how to change the settings and programs. Lily was very good and patient through that whole process which is hard to do for a 13 month old. Once all of the mechanics were explained we jumped right in to the initial stimulation phase! Everything seemed to be going really well and Lily was happy and content until she suddenly startled and started crying so hard she held her breath, you know how babies hold their breath when they get scared. We got her calmed down and all seemed to go fairly well after that. Though she seemed to be pretty sensitive on the right side. The first couple of times the processor was put on she cried for a few seconds.
Lily during right side stimulation
Once the right side settings were done we discussed what alarms would be put on her processors such as disconnect alarms, so we will know if she pulls them of her head or detaches the cords. There is also an alarm for low battery, which is great because so far we have had to change the battery twice, that tells us when she needs a new battery! I really like how handy these alarms are no matter how annoying they can be when Lily wants to disconnect her headpiece every 5 seconds (she only does this when she wants attention).
We finally moved onto the left side stimulation and, to our surprise, Lily seemed really content with this side. No tears or startles at all! She sat on my lap and moved her battery charger back and forth over the table top like nothing was happening at all. She was just in her own little world. This of course changed when we had to put both processors on at the same time. Same as before she got startled when the right processor went on , but she was fine with the left. She settled down pretty quickly and all she cared about was getting down to explore the room.
This is Lily's Melody monkey from Advanced Bionics
One of the cool things about all of the cochlear implant companies is they all have some sort of stuffed animal pal, that also has cochlear implants, so the kids feel like their pals are the same as them. I find this to be a really good idea especially for younger kids. I have looked and can not find cochlear implants for dolls anywhere and this is the next best thing for a small child. Lily got two monkeys because she got bilateral implants. She got both Melody and her big brother Buddy both of which have cochlear implants. How cute is that!
Lily's big brother, Leland, being silly
Melody and Buddy and their bionic ears
After about an hour and a half we were done with activation and Lily seemed to have settled with the new senses of sounds and her environment. She toddled around the waiting room while we waited for her brother to see the ENT about his hearing aid. It was amazing to see her go from so startled to toddling around like nothing was ever wrong.
Lily showing off her new C.I. attire
We are looking forward to the coming days and weeks of mappings and therapies to see just how far our little girl can go! It is truly amazing what technology can do!
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