*Smile* I've received about five MAJOR emails in the past two days. All of them touched me, majorly. So sweet. Thank you...
I'm like a walking sensitivity hormone these days, so my experience at Pisa blew me away. I met a guy who I've been corresponding with via Italian forum and facebook- he is ADORABLE!!! It was like meeting Jordan fifteen years from now. This guy was tall, (he looked shorter in his facebook profile photo)extremely intelligent and nervous. His mom- emotional, terrified and intelligent.
I was there to provide support based on my experience. You see, after twenty-some years of wearing hearing aids, that no longer work for him, he has decided to opt for the cochlear implant surgery. Although he is Italian and Deaf since birth-educated using the oral approach and mainstreamed, he writes the most beautiful English I've ever seen and has been surfing Rachel and Abbie's blogs to gather information regarding cochlear implants.
*Bloggers' International Cochlear Implant Awareness Service In Effect*
To those of you who write to share, you will never truly know how your experiences touch and enrich the lives of others...
I don't know if I can adequately express how it feels to make direct eye contact with another mother who you know has worked her ass off for twenty-something years to raise such an incredible man, knowing her fear that her son is about to undergo surgery. Or if it's possible to find the words to explain her break-down when she watched Josh Swiller's video as he says, "Shh-it" and repeats word for word the sentences in the speech test...just because he can finally hear- imagining that her son might actually truly start hearing for the first time in his life. Knowing how difficult it is to have to wait to reach that moment with the fear of a surgery in the middle throws me all out of whack and I get all teary-eyed, too.
I was invited to sit in with their meeting with the ci surgeon. Something happened that made me want to stand up and SCREAM!
The surgeon sat across from the table and spoke to the mom, not the twenty-five year old Deaf patient. Every now and then, he would speak to the patient, but the majority of the time, he spoke to the mom. This really bothered me. Apparently,it didn't bother the man, but it REALLY bothered me.
This man knows way more about the surgery and all of the details than his mom, he is highly intelligent with a great sense of humor and he has had all of his questions answered by international bloggers.
*But...*
I will say this: the cochlear implant surgery and its subsequent activation and therapy will provide this man with something so powerful- it will enable him to find the confidence to say, "You need to speak to me...and not my mother."
Photo: www.businesspundit.com
