Moments when I looked at Jordan and wondered if it would EVER get easier.
He was an extremely difficult, stubborn child who NEVER listened or stood still.
I had to cram the speech therapy lessons down his throat, we had battles of will and never-ending tantrums.
Homework with hearing aids was a nightmare, he needed to concentrate on my lips, focus and try to understand. Every word was mental torture transformed into an accomplishment.
Every day adults, parents ask me if there's a difference between hearing aids and the cochlear implant.
The World.
We had a conference in Grosseto on Saturday. Our association had some of our kids step up to the microphone and speak. Amazing.
I prepared a powerpoint presentation for Jordan that went something like this:
Slide 1- My name is Jordan and I was born with a profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss.
Slide 2- I wore hearing aids for eight years and then I underwent surgery for a cochlear implant.
Thanks to my cochlear implant, I can hear... (photo of his ci)
Slide 3- My passion is...(photo of X-box Live) He explained how he plays X-box live with people from other countries, how he hears using a headset and speaks French, Spanish and English.
Slide 4- I'm a little bit Italian...(a photo of our family, his Italian grandmother and his Uncle) He talked about his family, his grandma's great cooking and how he has fun with his Uncle.
Slide 8- And I'm a little bit American...( a photo of Sofia and Jordan on the plane, Jordan and my Dad, Jordan and my mom, Jordan, Elvis and Sofia and Jordan eating a donut) He said how it was difficult to live so far away from his American family and talked about what he did while in the USA.
Slide 14- A photo of him and his friend- he told the story of how he just recently changed schools because he CHOSE to improve his life.
Applause.
Luckily I remembered to take one picture as I was clicking the powerpoint- I had to stop the conference to do so:-)
Here it is...
I would have to say that it was an emotional moment for me.
I knew that he would speak one day.
I never imagined he would speak before a group of people not only about his hearing loss...
but about his life.
3 comments:
I would have been bawling my eyes out...way to go Jordan...and way to go Mom...for your strength and tenacity and unending love.
Jodi: I love this blog....and I love that boy! And I love how far YOU and Jordan have come. I remember those extremely difficult days and then I remember (after Jordan's Cochlear Implant Surgery), asking him how much better he could hear. "One-thousand percent!" he said. I'll never forget it! It's a miracle!
What a handsome young man,
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