Welcome to the Lost and Found

"I once was lost but now am found" from the old Gospel hymn just sums up my very exciting but exhausting day. It began with our search for sound. Most of you know my seven year old was born deaf, received his cochlear implant before age four and quickly and miraculously, not only learned to hear and speak, but had basically caught up with his hearing peers by age five when he began Kindergarten.Here he is at age six (keep in mind, results do vary quite a bit and a lot of therapy and at-home work went into this):

He lost his ability to access that sound when a mean old nasty infection decided to room in his ear and took that ability away when his implant was removed in December. Today, having been reimplanted already and sporting two cochlear implants now instead of just one, we had our first stim(ulation) and turned his hearing back on today. So what was lost, has been found.

Then we get home to practice our skills. He runs to his room to listen to all his trucks and see what they sound like.

He had to take about three 10 min breaks during the day and by 5:00 this afternoon he was really tired of it. So I plan to put them back on for a few minutes before bed time and then back to the audiologist we go first thing in the morning for our second mapping. But here is a clip of him four hours after leaving the audiologist's office today:

Then approximately, five hours after leaving her office, Gage decided he wanted to hear birds. He just begged me, "Please, I gotta hear those birds, Brook will go with me" so I let them....go....in the freezing cold wind....toboggan(hat)down tight over those magnetic coils that cling to his little head...and I let them go....I LET THEM GO! and guess what? Fifteen minutes later they returned with only ONE, do you hear me? ONE!! So, I stop what I'm doing, re-bundle everyone up, we go outside and began an impossible search. We worked the front area first and after 10 minutes of no luck, we came back inside so I could clear my head, pray, think, pray, and out we went again. Having watched the two chase birds thru the overgrown field outback, and enter the woods, and exit from the cane or bamboo...I knew it was just LOST. I went ahead and warned the audiologist that this may be a less than happy ending, we began our second search. I was freaking out, yes, admitted. The kids knew the importance of finding the item since they both value hearing...so we walked, and walked, only guessing at paths they may have traveled. Here's a picture of the cane patch and just one area we had to search.

Oh, but once again, miraculously...what was lost, was then found....in this cane! So, for those of you who know me, you may understand or pity my stress levels, and maybe you see how these kids are never boring! What could tomorrow bring??
We are keeping a close watch on his re-implanted ear (which he loves!! he hears best with that ear as expected). He seemed to be in pain when we attached the magnet, so we removed it...tried it again later and has not complained since. So, who knows, it's still watch and wait for now. But he's doing GREAT!!