Jake's Activation

On January 21st at 10 am we went over to Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego to get Jake's "Ears" turned on. He had his surgery on December 30th and now everything was healed up enough that they could hook up the external part of the implant. They went with the Advanced Bionics® (www.advancedbionics.com) for Jake. You can check out the web page for more information on the equipment. It is very interesting.

We were in the middle of a major rain storm although the rain wasn't bad when we drove over. It had knocked out the elevators so we had to walk up 4 flights of stairs with all Jake's stuff, all the cameras and misc junk. (We had a lot more going down too!!)

Jake played in the waiting room until they called us back. You can see where they had to shave his hair to do the surgery. I couldn't believe how much his hair had grown in the three weeks!

They took us back into the room and as the audiologists were programing the computers and setting everything up Jake played with all the great toys they have there.

After they finished with that they "hooked" him up to the computer. You can see the cord hanging down. They were playing noises into the implant from the computer to find out at what level he could hear the noises they were making. After they got the base line they turned on the implant so he could hear what was happening in the room.

That was a very emotional time for everyone. Jake started turning around trying to figure out what was happening and then he started crying. Of course everyone else started crying too!!
You can see the the headpiece that attaches to the implant in his head with magnets. They come off fairly easily and I know it will be a learning curve for keeping them on.

After a few minutes he calmed down and played but he wanted to stay on either Mommy or Daddy's lap! Here he is wiping his tears and then wiping Mommy's. He was sooooo cute!

Here he is after he has both the headpieces on. The blue vest has pockets on either side in the back. These hold the processors that run the equipment. In a few years when he gets older he will be able to have them go behind the ears like a hearing aid.

After we left the hospital we headed over to a restaurant for lunch. On the way he was very unhappy with all the noise he could hear! He didn't even want to play with his "favorite toy" the toilet paper! He had held on to it on the way to the hospital and thought it was great fun.

We went over to one of Jake's favorite restaurants for Dim Sum.

Here Jake's Pou-Pou (Grandmother) is helping him eat something or other. I don't remember what Lisa said his favorite thing was.
What ever it is he really likes it a lot. When we first went in Steve turned off the processors so he would eat. After he started eating and was happy he turned on one. At first Jake started to cry but stopped fairly quickly as the food was soooo good. Then Steve tried to turn the second one on and Jake had too much trouble with that so they went back to just one for the rest of the meal. It will be a long learning process. (for everyone!)

No, the restaurant isn't on fire and no one is smoking, just hot steam. You can see his headpiece again.

Goofy Daddy!

All in all a very exciting morning. A lot more work to be done but at least it is started now.

After lunch Lisa had a ultrasound and her mom and I got to go with her. It was so exciting to see the newest little grandson!! He is beautiful, or should I say, Handsome!!

I will post a of picture of him as soon as Steve scans one for me. How I wish I had been able to have an ultrasound to see my babies! It is so fun. Thanks Lisa for letting me come and thanks Steve for giving up your spot and babysitting so the grandmas could go!!

More to come. ....... ...... ........