Activation Day #1!

What an exciting day for us!! The day started out with a trip to the doctor for Elli. She had been running a fever since last Thursday night, hardly would eat anything and developed a bad cough. So finally I called the doctor yesterday right at 8:00 and was able to get her in at 8:50. She has/had influenza. She was vaccinated so this must have been a different strain. She remained fever free all day yesterday and went back to daycare this morning.
Briggs activation appointment was a little disappointing for us but the day ended great! He was scheduled for x-rays, his post-op and activation all at 1:00. Those went perfect and it's positioned perfectly in his cochlea and right up to his nerve. We LOVE Dr. Lusk!! The x-rays and the post-op took an hour so we didn't get to the activation until 2:00. I assumed we'd be allowed 2 hours for his activation but once we were in the car at 3:00 it dawned on us that they needed to be done by 3:00. That would explain the audiologist talking a mile a minute and really rushing through the process. She was VERY nice and informative but it felt VERY rushed. Basically two hours worth of information and testing was done in one hour. Parents only get that "moment" once and we were very disappointed that is was so rushed. So what they did was put Briggs external device on his head and then hooked him up to the computer. Since babies can't tell you what they're hearing and if it's too loud or too soft they have to test based on the nerve response through the computer. The great news... all the electrodes are working and responding like they're supposed to be and his nerve responded to all the pitches - which is best case scenario. They programmed or "mapped" 3 maps for him. The first being very conservative and soft, the second still being very conservative but a little louder and the third still being very conservative but a little louder. They only tested his response yesterday on the first map with the volume half way. He showed no response. We weren't disappointed that he didn't respond b/c we were prepared for that and know that Boystown is extremely conservative when activating people. We were disappointed that they only tried on the first map. So she continued to show us all the equipment and gave us our homework. We were to go home and turn up the volume and watch for response and if there was none then turn it to the second map and gradually turn up the volume and if we see nothing to turn it to the third map and gradually turn it up. So we went home and did just that. We noticed some things but didn't feel they were consistent so we kept moving along. We were on the third map and Briggs was sitting about 4 ft. from me and between us was a plastic doctor kit of Elli's. He had taken everything out of it. I picked up a little plastic cup of Elli's and tossed it in the bucket. He jumped and got a very confused, scared look on his face (a mix between a deer in the headlights and about to cry). So I took it out and tossed it in there a second time. He did the exact same thing, jumped again and got an even sadder, scared look on his face. So I did a third time and he jumped again and started bawling. It was AMAZING to FINALLY see him react to sound!!!! I can't even describe what that felt like. We know everything is working in there, it's just a matter of finding the right map or volume for him and then of course his brain adjusting to all this change and figuring out what's going on. It's a process that does not happen over night and takes time and patience. The next couple years are going to packed with teaching him but it'll all pay off in the end. So we go back today and I have A LOT of questions!! I'll post again tomorrow. I emailed the media guy to see if he could video today's appt. as well because I want to catch him responding on video. Hopefully we have more time to spend testing him today!!