Progressing quickly...

Jack had a fantastic audiology appointment this last Wednesday. He went in for his 2 week follow-up to his initial stimulation, so at this point he'd been "turned on" for 2 weeks. Remember that he was hearing a full range of sounds, but only at high volumes, so he really wasn't hearing too much. We were told that it would take a couple of months for him to reach the "normal" hearing range where he heard everything. Well....imagine our surprise when his audiologist programmed it so he was extremely close to the normal hearing range! He should be at "normal hearing" in the next week. She was able to program it this quickly because he responded so well to the sounds she presented him. Imagine if you'd never heard a certain sound before in your life; once you heard it, would you recognize it as an important sound and respond to it? That's how it is with Jack; he is learning that sound is important and has meaning. So for him to respond to whisper-quiet sounds is a miracle!

We went into the sound booth where they test hearing by playing a wide range of sounds, and Jack responded consistently to nearly ALL of them. It was amazing to witness and truly the only word that comes to mind is, miraculous. Only 2 months earlier we sat in that same booth and Jack failed to respond to the loudest of sounds. Once equipped with his hearing aids, he responded to about 1/3- 1/2 the sounds. With his cochlear implant, he responded to about 90% of the sounds...including sounds that were so quiet, I was questioning they were actually putting sound out. I'm talking about sounds that are comparable to the breeze....and this is only 2 weeks since being stimulated! His audiologist was so excited and said he did so well; I looked at her, like "uh-huh, thanks," because what else is she going to say? She sensed my hesitation, and was like, "No, you don't understand. He was amazing! He is progressing very quickly and to respond consistently the way he did is awesome." She called him her superstar and said he was in her top two of patients because of how he performed in the sound booth. It's really interesting how they train kids to respond to sound. We have a bucket of balls and Jack holds 1 ball up to his ear, indicating he is listening; once he detects a sound, he throws the ball in the bucket. And the process starts over again; he did this for about 15 mins in the booth and was incredible, he's so smart.

So anyways, in case you can't tell, we're super excited about this and so grateful. Jack is just so special and watched over by his Heavenly Father. I can literally see His hand in Jack's life in his short 2 1/2 years of being on this earth.