Cochlear Implant Encounter

Friday when we were at Family Fun Night at Summit School, dropping our tickets into the bags for the gift basket raffles, a lady stopped me and started asking about Micah's BAHAs. She said she was a teacher of the deaf from New York, and from her speech it seemed as if she had hearing loss of some sort herself.

The hallway, crowded with people, and already narrowed by the tables set up to hold the gift baskets, was not the best place to have a conversation. She was curious as to how the BAHAs are held on his head (the big mesh hairband with the two little disks held by the mesh and the BAHAs snapped onto them somehow eluding her.)

I tried explaining that he was too young to have the titanium posts that some BAHA users have to attach their devices directly onto their mastoid bone, and I tried to convey that we don't know what lies beneath in terms of being able to have atresia repair. With all the background noise, it was hard, I was struggling to keep my eyes on the kids, speak clearly and maintain eye contact with my listener - but it just really wasn't working. It was the longest fifteen to twenty minutes of my life in terms of frustration.

And then this woman says, "Wait a minute," reaches into her purse and pulls out an over-the-ear cochlear implant hearing aid, pops it on, attached the magnet and the conversation continued.

There were too many witnesses there, otherwise I would have cheerfully strangled her. Why doesn't she wear it all the time?

My frame of reference is stories about kids who want to sleep with their implants on, stories of parents who used some sort of seal-a-meal device to waterproof the implant so that the kid can wear it in the water held in place by a swim cap so they can hear, the idea being that the wearer is happier hearing versus not.

Thanks to a cold/sore throat, a yelling marathon over a blue lollipop with Thea and this conversation, my voice sounds like I'm going through gender reassigment surgery.