Recovery

Henry has recovered remarkably from such a major surgery. Besides the obvious physical evidence, you wouldn’t know that this time last week he was in surgery. He is our smiley, happy Henry. He had a check-up with the surgeon yesterday, who was very happy with how the stitches are healing and was very positive about how Henry would respond at switch-on next week. She reiterated that his brain response which was tested during surgery was good. So we have every reason to be optimistic with how Henry will respond and progress when he has access to sound. So very exciting!
Now that the swelling has come down, we are able to see the profile of Henry’s implants in his head. I thought this would bother me- that this little baby who I gave birth to now has a titanium microchip marring the side of his head. However when I see the slight profile on the side of Henry’s head, I just feel excitement. Excitement for the opportunities Henry is being given, for the possibilities, excitement for our future.
I have included a picture below of the implant component. The round part at the top (which is the magnet) is a bit bigger than an Australian fifty cent piece, just to give an idea of size. The square bit is the microchip. And the thin curved tendrils at the bottom are the implant electrodes which are threaded into the cochlear.

How does it work?

The external sound processor captures sound and converts it into digital code. This is sent through the external coil (Henry hasn’t got any of these external components yet) to the implant. The implant converts the digitally-coded sound to electrical impulses and sends them down the electrode array which is positioned in the cochlear. The electrodes stimulate the cochlear’s hearing nerve, which then sends signals to the brain, which are interpreted as sound. This is different to how normal hearing works- in normal hearing, hair cells within the cochlear vibrate to create sound signals for the brain. When Henry had hearing aids, he was still hearing the ‘normal’ way, the hearing aids just amplified the sound signals to his cochlear (unfortunately it just could never be loud enough for Henry to hear). With the implants, what he hears will be completely different to what someone with normal hearing hears – it will be a more ‘digital’ version of what we hear. This means many of the nuances and sound variations will be blurred and he will really have to work hard to learn to distinguish all the different sounds and filter out those that aren’t necessary (for example, background noise). Isn’t technology just amazing!!!!