Time flies

This week has flown by! I can't believe I've gone so long without posting...I could have sworn it had only been a few days. I tell you, my brain has given up on me.

Things with us are good...Seth is doing great at school. His teacher said he's basically indistinguishable from the other kids and that his equipment has been a nonissue. Not only that, but he is FINALLY deigning to talk to his therapists! Oh happy day, I thought you would never come! After his last appointment, his therapist stopped me and said "I know you weren't worried, but I was! I was beginning to think there was something really wrong. Thanks for believing in him!"

Man, that compliment rated right up there on the relief meter as high as the day the audiologist told me he was deaf. Yes, I know how crazy that sounds, but I knew Seth couldn't hear, and everyone else told me to stop being negative and that I was imagining things. Having what I knew confirmed was an amazing feeling, even though I was obviously sad that I had been right. I would have loved to be wrong, but it was great to have someone tell me I knew my son!

Strangely enough, though, I'm not sad that Seth is deaf anymore. Seth is Seth, and it just so happens that he needs his CIs to hear. They are so much a part of him that I can't even picture him without them, and I regularly freak out when I run my fingers over the other kids hair and don't feel the bumps from the implants. It's funny what you can get used to, and even funnier what you can grow to embrace.

Last week, Seth and I were able to attend an Advanced Bionics event in a city a short distance away from us. While there, we met a little girl and her family who were there to talk through making the choice to implant or not to implant their daughter. She's nine years old and has a progressive hearing loss that has just gotten severe enough to go the implant route.

Guys, I can't even tell you how amazing it was to meet her. Her family was so torn about what to do, and seeing Seth and talking through the details of the surgery, recovery, and rehabilitation seemed to make such a difference to them. By the end of the day, the little girl was trying on Seth's processors and planning out her own decorations. The next day I got an email that they had decided to go ahead and schedule surgery!

There are few feelings more satisfying than knowing that, by traveling this road with Seth, we are helping other families in our shoes as we go along the way. I don't know it all...or much, really. But I do know that coming alongside other families is one of the best things we can do. So as long as Seth is willing, and as long as I am able, we will go and do and be wherever we need to be to show people what a blessing implants can be.

Sometimes I forget that two short years ago I had a son who couldn't hear me tell him I loved him.

Today, thanks to an amazing surgeon, a committed family, a great audiologist and therapist, hundreds of incredible people helping fundraise, and most of all, of course, God, I have a two year old who bosses me around and tells me what to do, with a voice I thought I might never hear.

Holy run on sentence, Batman! Oh well, it's late and I'm not fixing it. I digress.

I never want to forget that, yet it's so easy to get caught up in life and forget how special every word is. Every family we can share with is one more opportunity to remember how far he's come. He's still Profoundly Seth, and I'm more proud of him every day.