Recovery Update Part 2

I can't believe its already been a week since Isabel's surgery!  Since figuring out how to share my blog through Facebook I have received so many amazing messages of support from friends and family across the globe....all of these notes really have meant so much to us and honestly help to keep our chins up when we have down moments or start to feel sorry for ourselves!  So thank you!!  Isabel really is amazing and she is proving more so with every day this week as she recovers from such a big surgery.

Several people have also asked me since Issy's surgery how I am handling all of this.  To answer that question...you just do.  It's amazing what you can manage and overcome when you have no choice.  Also spending time in a children's hospital is a very humbling experience.  As you sit in waiting rooms with other parents whose children are also having MRI's, CT scans and surgeries you quickly realise things could be so much worse.  I chatted for a while with the mother of a 2 year old girl that had leukemia.  They had been in hospital for 5 weeks undergoing very full on treatment and she was waiting to find out from this MRI if things were getting better.  Her baby was very sick and suffering greatly undergoing all that treatment.  Isabel isn't sick....she isn't suffering...and apart from not being able to hear us she is a very happy, healthy little girl.  AND the best part is, now because of this incredible technology called the Cochlear implant...she IS going to hear us!

So we have some very good news....we went to our GP this morning to have the last part of Issy's dressing removed and to get her scars checked out and it all looks great!  Again can't say enough how amazing Dr. Phillip Chang and his team are...I didn't know what to expect and can say I was so pleasantly surprised today to see what a good job they have done.  Ok so she still has two huge big scars on either side of her head....but once her hair grows we won't know any different.  So we got the official go ahead from the GP that Isabel is able to be 'switched on' on Monday morning at 9am!!!!!

One week post surgery...just need some hair now!

I will admit prior to Isabel's surgery I was still a little apprehensive about whether or not we were doing the right thing.  By having Cochlear implant surgery you are pretty much wiping out all remaining residual hearing someone has as when they insert the electrodes into the cochlea the remaining hairs in the cochlea are damaged.  SO if Isabel had more hearing than we may have thought, this surgery would wipe it.  We had done all the tests and seen several specialists, but I guess being a mum its still hard to believe that your baby can't hear you.  Especially because Isabel is such a noisy baby....she babbles non-stop and copies you when you make noises.  Chris and have both said on many occasions that if we had not had the newborn hearing screening in hospital we would never have known Isabel was deaf.  So after surgery I was nervously waiting to see if Isabel's personality would be any different.  If she would be quieter or more irritable etc.  I am so thankful to report she is not!  She is the same happy, laughing babbling baby she was, which makes me sure that we did not take anything away from her, but rather we have given her a great gift!  The gift of sound!!

1 week post surgery back smiling, playing and reading books!

I know there is still a very long road ahead teaching Isabel to listen and speak using a different mode of hearing, but I can't help being so excited for Monday morning!  I will be counting the hours (and am sure we will be there early!) till we go to the Shepherd Centre for Issy's activation.  Very happy time for us all here.

M. x