Hearing Everly's Story

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Happy 1st Birthday Everly Jo!

It has been one memorable year for the Larson family. Many emotional times, and lots of happy and sad tears, but in the end we have not only survived but conquered this year. The day of Everly's diagnosis was probably the worst day in my life. There were so many unknowns. And unknowns are scary. Since that day there have been so many milestones to celebrate. And with each milestone the unknown became less and less. We found the right doctors, we developed a plan, we found out she was a cochlear implant candidate, her surgery, her activation... Now our path is clear. We still have Mount Everest to climb however it's not unknown anymore. And I know our family will conquer all the future milestones like we have done so far.

Everly is a very happy one year old. She enjoys walking (although a little unstable still), playing too rough with her brother, exploring the sand at the park, and swinging. Her hearing and listening are coming along great as well. She is only eight weeks hearing and she responds to many sounds both loud and quiet. She's even beginning to correlate sounds with meaning. For example, if Cooper barks, she looks towards the door because that usually means someone's coming in the house. If you say "bye-bye Everly," she will give you a wave. And many others...

Thank you to all of our family and friends for the support over this last year. No doubt you've played an important part in our lives. And we are grateful to have all of you.

At the zoo!

Petting the goats

Family trip to Big Bear Lake with Grandma Lou

Cool lake breeze on her face

Everly loves hearing in the bath with her waterproof processors. Thanks Advanced Bionics!

Playing with uncle Brad on the slide and trying to avoid the three dogs

Belly raspberries from daddy

Everly loves the little pool in our little yard

TV time!

Morning snuggles with daddy. That flash is too bright!

Our little walker

Snack time in the back of mama's car after therapy sessions

"You will never have this day with your children again. Tomorrow they'll be a little older than they were today. This day is a gift. Breathe and notice. Smell and touch them; study their faces and charms of the present. Enjoy today mama. It will be over before you know it." -Jen Hatmaker

Monday, May 25, 2015

One Month of Hearing!

It's been one month since Everly's activation. As you can imagine, her world has exploded! In the first weeks after activation, Everly has shown a lot of different and new reactions to voices and sounds. We have been diligent in our observations as to which sounds elicit a happy or curious reaction and which sounds startle her. It's amazing the difference we have seen in just one month. Everly definitely responds to Cooper's barking, clapping, knocking, singing and playing the piano. In the last week or so, she's really starting to respond to our talking voices. It can be confusing for her to differentiate between new sounds, voices and noises in these beginning stages. She hears better and responds more in a quiet room without too much background noise.

On Friday, we had another mapping session with her audiologist at USC. They tested her current settings and made some adjustments to her programming. She did remarkably well. No tears this time! Well, I had some tears but that's a normal occurrence for me these days :) We were told that Everly has access to hear most of our speech sounds. She did not respond to the softest and highest frequency speech tones but we believe she has access to hear those sounds and didn't respond because she doesn't recognize them as sounds yet. That's where the therapy comes in.

Below is a video of her one month mapping session. You can see her clearly responding to the beeps. It may not look like much but this is an immense improvement from just one month ago.

We couldn't be happier with her results thus far. I can't even imagine how she's going to impress us in the future. I can't wait.

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Everly's hearing birthday!

Wow what a week it has been! Everly's Cochlear Implants were activated this week starting on Tuesday, April 21st. This will be considered her hearing birthday and a day we will never forget. Everly was such a trooper. I can't imagine how scary it must be to hear sound for the first time. When the implants were activated, she cried most of the time which is a normal and good reaction. It meant that the cochlear implants were working. We went back two additional times so the audiologist could continue to adjust the programming/mapping. It's more complicated than this, but essentially she turned up the implants each time. We needed to make sure Everly was comfortable, not in pain, and could tolerate the mapping. Everly had no tears the second and third day. It's amazing how she learned to tolerate her new sense so quickly. By the third day, she definitely reacted to the testing the audiologist did. It was amazing.

Although Everly is 10 months old, her ears are that of a newborn. Think about what you expect a newborn to hear. Not a lot. Newborns don't know their names; they don't know their mother's, father's or sibling's voices; they don't turn toward a sound; there's no meaning attached to any sound. Most newborns can sleep soundly in a noisy room. It's a little bit of a hard concept for me to comprehend. It seems as if Everly should know her name, should know my voice, but she has only reacted to a couple sounds thus far. Of course this will all come in time. We resume all of our therapy next week. I am looking forward to getting back to our routine, albeit a busy one.

Thank you to everyone for all of the positive thoughts throughout this period in our lives. We couldn't have done it without all the support we received. And a special shout-out to the grandparents, as they were with us every step of the way.

First reaction of her new sense...

1st activation day

All hooked up with her new equipment

It's been a long morning but she;s still happy

The grandmas singing to Everly

Everly's hearing birthday is a day will we never forget!

At home after activation playing with brother Brooks

Reading books is so different now!

2nd activation day with our audiologist, Jamie. No tears today!

Playing while testing my new magic ears.

3rd activation day. Trying the second device that goes behind the ear. She will eventually wear this one when she gets older.

More testing...

Lots of wires and equipment!

Finally we are finished...at least for now! With our audiologist, Jamie.

On the way home...we spent a lot of time in the car this week.

My new head gear. I think she looks like a cute little bug now!

Playing with Brooks and using her voice!

She reacted to hearing the piano today.

It was pretty amazing.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Successful Surgery

It's been one week since Everly's cochlear implant surgery. I'm not going to lie, it's been a long week. However, Everly is a stellar patient. The surgery went remarkably well and we did not have to stay a night in the hospital. We got to the hospital at 5 AM and we were home by 3 PM. She was in the OR for just over two hours. Amazing!! She had a bandage around her head for two days which Matt and I took off on Thursday. She has an incision about 2 inches long behind each ear. They are already healing so well. I'm sure in a few short years we will not be able to see them at all. She also now has a bump on each side of her head where the implants lie. These bumps are fairly noticeable now but they will become less noticeable as she grows and gets more hair. Her recovery has been remarkable to watch. I'm so impressed with how resilient little babies and kids are. She is healing so fast.

With the surgery behind us, Matt and I can only think about her activation day. We will start the process on April 21st. That's just right around the corner. And Everly will hear sound for the first time! We will make sure to videotape her reaction so we can share with all.

As always, thanks for following along. And thank you for everybody's positive thoughts and prayers over the last week.

Much love,
Elizabeth