Sophie's Activation Day!

What a big day for us.  We waited 3 weeks after Sophie's surgery to get her activated and start her mapping.  It felt like forever but it was worth the wait.

The mapping process was pretty quick.  The audiologist started with tones from a computer program and later turned on her microphones so we could talk to Sophie while she adjusted the maps.
Our CI comes with a remote so we were sent home with 4 programs to run through over the next couple of weeks.  Each program gets progressively louder and we can up the volume at will.  Pretty nifty!

We spent most of our time getting oriented to the new technology.  We'll get that wired over the next week or so.  Our big issue now is getting Sophie to keep her coil (round headpiece) on.  We've been experimenting with hats and headbands already and we may even try some toupee tape.

So much to learn and just one more week until Sophie's second surgery!

Here's the activation video.

Surgery Day Update and Photos

What a big day!  Everything went well and Sophie seems to be resting very comfortably.  Here's a photo recap:

 What a big day.  We started off in the pre-op room for a quick outfit change and some stats.

Next it was off to the playroom to wait for surgery.  That took a while but at least they had a nice selection o toys.

Surgery only lasted an hour and a half. Mom and Sophie were reunited within 15 minutes.  We stayed in recovery for a good 3 hours with 2 amazing nurses.  And what do you think about the bandage?  You gotta love a surgeon with fashion sense.  Note the bow at the temple.

The very nice Cochlear representative delivered this little guy.  He's Casey the Koala and He's an N5 user :)

We Finally Chose a Brand!

After many months of deliberation, we have finally settled on Cochlear America for Sophie's implants.  We think that all of the big 3 (Cochlear, Advanced Bionics, and Med-el) offer wonderful features but for us it came down to the electrode.  We figure that Sophie may need to be re-implanted at some point in her life so we want to do as much as we can to preserve the physical structures of her ears.  This means choosing a brand with an atraumatic electrode that can be inserted via the round window vs. a cochleostomy.  This left us with Cochlear America and Med-el.  AB is about to release theirs but we opted not to wait for FDA approval as that timeline was uncertain.  From there, Cochlear won out based on their share of the market which meant company stability for us.

Sophie's big day is just a week away so its nice to bring brand choice to a close!