CNI Cochlear Kids Camp

I'm HOME! YES! I so missed home.. I missed my momma, Little, Mouse, giving Mouse her mohawks every morning, sleeping in MY bed, the computer, the life at home, etc. The Cochlear Kids Camp was a lot of fun and a wonderful experience! So happy I went! Snow Mountain Ranch is a beautiful place, HUGE and open, but beautiful. WOW!

I chatted with various people who have implants, and they shared their experiences with me. I saw little kids, kids, adults, and teenagers with implants! It was pretty cool. I learned more of the 3 different devices, and got some more information packets... Pretty interesting stuff. and MAN I was happy to hear that the MicroLink FM system works with all 3 devices! So now I know I don't have to get a whole new FM system for the implant if I had one. SWEEEEEEEEET!

There was this 3 year old girl, Bailee... oh she is so cute! She uses signs to communicate, so of course I watched her most of the time (I was assigned to the 3-year-old group). She just really likes me, and she's just so cute and tiny and sweet! She's like Asian or something like that, and she was adopted. But still very cute.

I got to meet Allison Biever! She's one of the audiologists at the CNI Rocky Mountain Cochlear Implant Center in Colorado, and I was really happy to meet her face to face. And we actually talked of stuff that we probably wouldn't have in email! And Miss America 1995 Heather Whitestone was there! I met her and got to talk with her a bit. Even got her autographs and a picture with her! Very cool. Heather is such a very nice person. And I got to talk with a guy (I think he's a senior in high school now) who has had his implant for about 2 years, and he told me of his experiences and all. He loves his device, and is very happy with his decision. And he encouraged me to go for it when I knew for sure if I'm a candidate. He seemed to be a pretty nice guy.

And Allison did mention that if I wanted the left ear implanted, that I should start wearing a hearing aid in the left ear again, just to keep the auditory nerves stimulated. Made sense to me! So now I need to have an earmold made for the left ear so I can start wearing a hearing aid in the left again. She said it didn't matter if I could hear or not, it's a good idea to keep the nerves stimulated and that sort of thing. If the nerves were not stimulated, then chances of the implant being a success probably wouldn't be too good. And I want the implant to be a success for me, so I'm going to do whatever I can. I'm happy she shared that advice with me. I would have never gotten that from her in email I don't think!

Overall, this whole thing was just plain AWESOME! And I would definitely do this again if I had the chance! So fun, cool, a really neat experience. I'll try to get some pictures posted on the Deaf Wyoming site.