Amplified at 3.5 yrs...National Merit Scholar Today

I always rant and rave about the amazing support offered by the incredible (and hot and sexy) parents on the Pediatric Cochlear Implant Circle. In fact some of the current threads are...
Freedom BTE and FM System
Amazing Video of one brother with a CI reading to his other brother with a CI (I will be posting that one, btw)
Bilateral Surgery a Success
Gentamicin and Hearing Loss (very interesting - lot of info offered)
Hearing with noisy background
Static on Plastic Slides
CI Awareness Cochlea Necklaces (I have this one!)
ETC.

Oftentimes, moms post topics such as "Bragging Rights," or "Had to Share," because when we finally see our children succeed, we know just the parents to come to to share our exciting news with...those who are just beginning - so that we can inspire them...and those who have accompanied us along the journey, so that they can be happy for us.

You know, while Jordan was growing up, I never "bragged" about him to other parents, actually I spent most of the time apologizing for his behavior issues. Yet, even while I was apologizing, I knew that he was so super-intelligent that his time would come.

Lately, this mom on the CI Circle has many inspirational stories to share about her son John. This is merely the latest in a looooong series that will only keep growing:


Today we learned that John has been selected as a National Merit Scholarship
Semifinalist. That makes him one of 16,000 students selected out of the 1.5
million juniors who took the PSAT last October.

John was late diagnosed and didn't receive his first HA's until age 3.5, had the evaluated expressive and receptive language of a 12 month old at the age of 4, received his first implant at age 8 yrs 8 months (8 years ago, that's a lot of 8's!), suffered two failures and received his current (and best working!) implant in June 2007.

Yes, he's bright. More importantly, he's hard working. But look what he was able to do despite having to make up so many years!

I know, I mean I KNOW -

I don't just think or speculate, that his intelligence and work ethic would not have been enough to help him achieve this honor without the CI. Earliest intervention is
always the best case scenario, but for all of you guys dealing with borderline candidacy, or auditory neuropathy, or progressive hearing loss that results in
your child receiving an implant past those all important language development
years, look what can happen!

Keep up the hard work and don't lose faith!

PS. When I requested permission to blog about her child's incredible achievement (btw, I was not a Merit Scholar, just in case there was any doubt *smile*)this proud mom added:

Feel free to point out that several "experts" told me that John would never talk (when he was just 3.5 yrs old), that he was more than likely autistic(another reason why he'd never talk - as if autistic children don't deserve services and/or hope), that he was more than likely mildly mentally retarded (their term, not mine), and that I was committing child abuse by teaching
him to speak. When I politely disagreed with all of the above, they told me
I was in "denial". I suppose I was. I was in denial of all their hogwash.
From non-verbal to National Merit Scholarship Semi-finalist in 13 years -
we'll take it.


YOU GO GIRL!!!!!!!!!

Patience and Priorities

I woke up this morning to one of the most beautiful emails I have ever received...this song's for you WOMAN!

This afternoon I got an AMAZING phone call, the phone call I've been hoping for and...I couldn't talk. I was in middle of a lesson with two of my students who are studying for an exam next week, so I couldn't desert them to talk to my phone call of a lifetime. He said he would call back at 6:30...and didn't. So, it is taking all of the patience I have mustered in the past 11 years of my life here in Italy not to freak out. I'm cool. NOT.

Patience is definitely required when:

Waiting for the result of the ABR;

You have an 11:00 am audiologist's appointment one and a half hours from your home with a 13 month old who NEVER stands still and she sees you at 3:00 pm (Damn good thing she didn't understand English:));

Waiting for the results of the genetics test to see if your child's deafness was genetically caused (Jordan's was not, we have no idea why he was born deaf, and to be quite honest, I was more concerned about helping him learn to speak than spending useless energy asking why - although, I do understand that MANY parents need to know that answer);

Waiting for my son to get that "S" - that "S" sound is a bitch;

Teaching my son to learn to read, spending grueling hours upon hours with flash cards trying to make it "click";

You're pregnant with your second child...nine months of wondering;

They give you the cochlear implant surgery date and it isn't the next day;

Someone calls you the night before the surgery to tell you, "Don't do it! You'll ruin your son!";

Your cochlear implant activation date is three weeks after the ci surgery;

Your son freaks out at the first mapping, refuses to wear the processor and develops genuine fear anytime someone tries to make him put it on;

A woman announces a three hour layover in Philadelphia after having driven two hours from Grosseto to Rome, spent two hours in the Fiumicino airport for an International Departure, occupied two restless kids for a ten hour transatlantic flight where one of the two clogged one of the eight airplane toilets with a roll of toilet paper after you let him go by himself for the first time ever, thinking he was mature enough to pee, wash his hands and get out safely;

Your kids make mistakes, you know they are making mistakes, yet you are helpless to help them.

And the list goes on and on and on...

As frustrating as it has been learning this great lesson of Patience, it has been just as rewarding, and I am growing. I have this strange sensation that a cycle of my life has just ended and a new one is beginning. As frustrating as it has been to be in a sort of limboland for the past year and a half, I am conscious of all that I have learned, how our experience with Jordan has required that my husband and I grow together in a very special relationship filled with so much love, patience and respect, and how we are both at a point in our lives where we are getting to know ourselves after the storm.

I have been driving the same street from my house in Istia to Grosseto for the past eight years. Two days ago, Jordan had a fieldtrip and wanted me to take him to school instead of the bus. So, I loaded Sofia in the car with Jordan, drove him to his school in Grosseto, drove back to Istia to take Sofia to school, drove back to Grosseto to work, drove back to Istia to prepare lunch and so on. I usually would have been annoyed to have had to go back and forth so many times, instead I was just happy to be with my kids.

And, instead of focusing on the millions of thoughts running through my head, I started to look around at the scenery. I noticed a pink villa I had never seen before, a piece of broken bridge, a couple of clouds in the form of sheep and a cluster of red poppies in the middle of a green field. Tuscany is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and limboland can be very enriching if one just learns a little Patience.