November 22 - Two Days Post Switch On

10:00 am: Again, Aiden's Implant went of first thing this morning when he got up. In fact, this is going so well, I'm not even going to say that anymore - the implant goes on when he gets up and only comes off in the car and when he sleeps. Again, there was a bit of crying first thing, even on volume one of Map 1, but it didn't last more than a couple of seconds before we were able to distract him.

The rest of the morning was a bit frusterating. Keeping the ear level micorphone on is a real challenge. Every time Aiden moves his head a bit too fast - off it comes, and pulls the magnetic coil off with it. Plus, we don't seem to notice too many reactions to sounds. We know that, although he HEARS sounds now, he doesn't UNDERSTAND them, but I thought there would be more clear reactions.

9:00 pm: We had our first "post switch on" follow up appointment at CHEO at 2:15 today - and it went really, really well!!! Despite the fact that Aiden would rather make the "hallway circle" through the Audiology Department than sit down and have a therapy session, he did great!

It wasn't too long that we were there before both his Audiologist and AV Therapist agreed that the ear level microphone was as irritating as I thought it was earlier (glad to know I'm not the only one!!). The problem seems to be that the cartilage in Aiden's ear isn't finished forming - and so his ear isn't firm enough to hold the device. Secondly, there is still a lot of muscle compacting behind his ear from the surgery which is making his ear stick out more than it will eventually - and that makes it hard to hold the microphone as well.

They had a couple of ideas on how to fix the problem. The first was double sided wig tape. However, because the skin behind his ear is still thin from the surgery, we can't try this solution out yet. The second was to attach his hearing aid mold to the microphone - and us this to kind of "secure it" into his ear. Ric is coming to Ottawa on Friday, so I'll have him bring the mold and we'll try this out.

To be honest, I am starting to wonder whether the implant that DIDN'T have an ear level microphone might have been a better choice - but it's a bit late for that now :> We will make this work - I just haven't figured out how yet... When I talked to Ric today, he mentioned something about Duct Tape - so maybe we'll try that next!!! (typical boy :>)

Anyway, back to the appointment. Aiden's Audiologist switched his implant settings to Map 2 (I'll have to explain what this means another time - but it means the sound is louder at a VERY basic level). When the switch first took place, Aiden cried again and they had to turn the volume down. We distracted him for a bit and eventually got Aiden happy at Map 2 - Volume 9. After that, he had some really, really great responses to sound! He CLEARLY looked at people who were making sounds out of his visual field. This time there was no mistaking it!! He even turned around and looked at Noah when he was clapping, so Noah was pretty happy about that :>

His AV Therapist said that she was really happy with Aiden's responses today. We left with some homework assignments for therapy at home (including making lots of "airplane, sheep, firetruck, cow and kissing" sounds) and told that we could turn Aiden's Map settings up to Map 3 on the weekend.

After the appointment, we went to pick my Mom up at the airport on her way back from Winnipeg. This was a pretty busy and noisy environment, and Aiden didn't seem the least bit spooked or anxious about it - so this is a good thing I think!!

Until tomorrow...