I have been trying to get some pictures of Reese with her implant on but she won't sit still long enough to get a good one. Her implant was activated last Wednesday and we have definitely seen some type of response. The day that it was turned on was encouraging but not all that you would maybe think that it would be. Her deafness is somewhat rare so the audiologist hasn't had alot of experience with it. She had to test all of the electrodes that are now inside of Reese's ear to make sure that nothing had gone wrong with them during the surgery. She said that everything looked great and that the auditory nerve was sending the message to her brain. So then she turned it on and started making different noises. No response, louder, no response. This is normal because you have to figure out how loud to make it etc. So we keep trying and Reese seems to be a little more mellow, she wanted me to hold her and while she was sitting there she all of a sudden stopped and just pointed at the computer for about two minutes. The look on her face made you realize she was getting something. That was a pretty cool moment. Then we took it off and learned how it all works. We put it back on before we left and that time she didn't seem to like it. She layed on Troy's shoulder and just cried. She wouldn't open her eyes. That was exciting though because it meant that she was hearing something. Since then she has been really great with it. Getting it on can be a challege and sometimes it seems to bother her at first, but give her 30 seconds and she seems to be great. She doesn't pull them off like she did with the hearing aides so that has been great. We worried that she would. The audiologist gave us four settings and she wants us to have it up to #4 by tomorrow. She has had it on the third for a couple of days so I will probably try #4 today. We go back to the audiologist tomorrow and we will get a new mapping (that is what they call it.) Then we will go from there. We are part of a yahoo group that is for parents that have children with Auditory Neuropathy and we posted a question on there last night wanting some input on what to expect. The response has been to give it about 4-6 before you really see any reaction to sound. We were kind of getting frustrated because she wasn't giving us much reaction so this was reassuring. We just have to be patient and be grateful for the responses we are getting. So anyhow here are some pictures of the implant. We were able to pick some of the colors for the different parts. At first I thought we would get colors that would blend in with her hair, but then I realized that I didn't want it to be something we were trying to hide. I don't want her to ever be ashamed or embarrassed of it so we chose the pink. Alot of the accessories in this picture are for the baby worn which attach to the back of her shirt and then to her ear and her head. They don't all have to be worn but this stuff helps us keep track of it. Right now if it fell off she couldn't tell us and I would HATE to loose and have to pay for another one.

She loves books, and now that she can "hear" Kenadee likes to read to her. Kenadee has been so great with her.

This is the ear that it is on. You can't hardly see it.
Best friends! They have really started to love each other and also drive each other (and me) crazy. I loved this picture. They were going in for hug here.