I had hoped to do a special post at his 6 month mark post activation, but just got really busy with life.
Instead, this is a really long video of what we typically do during therapy.
PK Therapy It is 14 minutes long. It's not his best example, but the best we have on video. As soon as we pull out the camera, he goes crazy.
So the list of words he can say:
more (signed as well)
please (cued as well)
cheese (cued as well)
go (cued as well)
shoe (cued as well)
up, down, no, thank you, good job, here you go, stinky, juice, milk, mmmm, shh, night night, papai, mamae, Kiernan (he says in nuh), baby, let's go, choo choo, mooo, baaa, ball, beep beep, wah wah, swish swish, grandma, grandpa, hi, bye, hi kitty, woof woof, meow, roar, book, look, bath, uh oh, oh no.
He can combine some of the listed words above into two word sentences, but only occasionally. He can follow directions like a champ, when he wants to and usually does not need any visual cues to understand what we mean. He can also follow cued directions when his implants are off as well.
Overall, he's been doing fantastic with his implants. We haven't had any issues, other than we discovered that his back up coil cables somehow didn't come with our kits. So I had to use my back up one for him while we ordered a replacement and got the back up ones. We also had to replace one of his processors as the orange light didn't work anymore, thus it was hard to tell if it was even on or off when it wasn't on his head. We also had to replace one of his rechargeable batteries.
Patrick has been pretty good about keeping his implants on. The only time he takes them off are when he's bored in the car (and he'll also take it apart piece by piece), is tired or knows I've reached the end of the bedtime song. In the morning, he even finds his implants and brings it to us to put it back on him. if any part of it comes off his ear or head, he frequently says "oh no" and points to his head for us to put it back on for him.
One thing I did learn, just in case other parents out there are reading this, it is smart to use all sets of rechargeable batteries and rotate them. Advanced Bionics and Med-el rechargeable batteries have lithium ion in them, which has a very short shelf life. So if you don't use them and rotate them...they still "lose" power over time. It's better to use them and rotate the batteries to have equal wear and tear. For Cochlear America, they didn't say anything about the shelf life, but they did say it's good to use them before the 1 year warranty is up so you can get it replaced before the warranty expires on them. Good to know!
