Activation!!!

We took Traxton back up to Salt Lake this week to have his post-op appointment with the surgeon. He said everything looked great and cleared us to have the implants activated. Once we met with the audiologist, she gave us the outer devices and programed them for the lowest level needed to initiate a response. Because the implant creates such a different sound than he had before, it takes time for the brain to learn what it is and how to interpret it as a language. We were told that some kids start to cry when they are activated because it is loud and scary. We really wanted to see a big exciting response from him, but it never happened. Jared and I felt like it was a little bit of a let-down. At one point he turned his head to a sound, but that was it. He was so good and patient while everything was set up, even though it was a little scary. The sound is quite minimal right now because his brain needs to adapt to the change. During the next week we will continue to turn his mapping up so that hopefully with each increase we will see progress.
Now that we are home, I feel like we have a huge amount of work ahead of us. We have to teach him that the new sound has meaning and how to interpret it. I am struggling with feelings of being overwhelmed because I feel like his success depends on me. We have such a long way to go and right now it feels like there is no light coming through at the end of the tunnel. I know I need to keep my expectations reasonable and take every day at a time.

He is such an amazing little boy. He is so strong and resilient with everything that he has been through. Even though we have dealt with some challenges in his little life, I am so glad I'm his mom and I wouldn't change anything about him.