Hudson couple makes decision to get a cochlear implant for 3-year-old son
November 20, 2011
By JESSICA COOLEY/The Lufkin News
HUDSON — Three-year-old Jaxon Baxter traces letters on the shirt of his dad,
Daniel, with one hand while gesturing with the other. Looking at her son
with admiration and flashing him a big grin, his mom, Meagan, explains he’s
signing the letters. It’s a day like any other in the Baxter household,
except Jaxon, born with a genetic defect manifesting itself as deafness, can
hear more clearly with the help of a cochlear implant. It was turned on for
the first time last week.
The decision to go the cochlear route was not an easy one for the Hudson
couple, as deaf culture tends to frown on it, but they went through with the
procedure with the desire to give Jaxon the opportunity to decide for
himself one day.
“We talked to another parent and his thought process with his daughter was,
‘I can always get her cochlear implants and she can learn sign language and
talk. If she’s 18 and wants to take it out, she can always have it
removed,’” Meagan said. “At least he knew he gave her that chance. That’s
how I’ve been thinking ever since. I just want him to have that chance.”
“At some point if he decides he doesn’t want it, he can stop,” Daniel said.
“For it to be beneficial, they have to get it done as early as possible.”
Initially the Baxters believed it was chronic ear infections causing Jaxon
delays in speech and responding to sound. In an attempt to correct the
problem, Jaxon had tubes put in his ears when he was 15 months old.
“They said that after having tubes put in, with most kids, almost
immediately, there is improvement. We had that done, and over the next
couple of months there was no improvement,” Daniel said, shaking his head.
“The only sounds he would make, he would literally just say, ‘ahhhh,’ and
that was it,” Meagan added.
Going back to local pediatricians, Jaxon was referred to Texas Children’s
Hospital in Houston for an auditory brainstem response test. The test
detects the hearing nerve’s response to sounds. After this test, Meagan and
Daniel learned their son was deaf.
“The first lady who told me he was deaf freaked me out a lot,” Meagan
recalled. “She was just like, ‘So your son is deaf.’ I was like, ‘So that’s
it? There is nothing else you can do?’ She said, ‘He’s deaf.’ I just sat
there.”
It wasn’t until a blood test at Texas Children’s in Houston revealed
Jaxon’s deafness was caused by a recessive gene Meagan and Daniel both
carry, Connexin 26, the couple stopped blaming themselves.
“We felt a lot better after that because we knew it wasn’t anything we had
done,” Meagan said.
Because of the gene, there is a 25 percent chance their next child could be
deaf and a 50 percent chance of them carrying the gene, Daniel said.
Until Jaxon came along, their only exposure to anyone deaf was a family
member’s little brother, Josh. They asked his opinion on the cochlear
implant and were left with mixed feelings from his answer.
“Josh said he never wanted it, and knew friends that had it years ago and
didn’t like them. Years ago, they were a lot bulkier and not nearly as
advanced,” Daniel said. “Then, like Megan was saying, there’s the deaf
culture aspect of it.”
“To them, that’s who you are,” Meagan said. “You lose that when you have a
cochlear.”
“Josh was iffy about the cochlear implant, so at first we were on the fence
about it, but then we started talking more to his sign language therapist
and doctors at Texas Children’s Hospital,” Daniel said.
It was only after Jaxon’s progress with hearing aids plateaued earlier this
year that they began seriously exploring the possibility of having the
cochlear implant procedure.
“This past January, he was able to start deaf ed at Trout. They told us to
really give the hearing aids a good shot, we would need to give it a few
months,” Daniel said.
“His sign language improved, but not really his speech,” Meagan said. “The
sign language, he picks up so fast, it’s ridiculous. He knows more than we
do.”
An MRI, EKG, blood tests, counseling and a thousand questions later, Jaxon
went in for surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital on Oct. 3.
“He had the initial surgery to put the internal part in. They make an
incision behind the ear, flap the ear forward, drill through the mastoid
bone and then drill straight through the cochlea. Then they thread the
electrodes to the cochlea,” said Daniel, who is a registered nurse by trade.
“After they put the electrodes in, they drill into the skull and make a well
so the external piece will lay flat. After that, everything is put in place.
Then we had to wait a month to have it activated with the external piece.”
On Nov. 9, Jaxon went back to Texas Children’s to have the cochlear
activated. While the initial turn-on was a big step for Jaxon, it’s been
little moments throughout the last week that have led Daniel and Meagan to
believe they made the right decision.
“Getting him from school earlier this week, I had on a Josh Abbott Band CD
in the car and he heard the violin or fiddle. He was like, ‘music,’ Meagan
said, signing the word. “He was smiling so big the whole way home. It’s
little things like that where I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh, he can hear.’”
“And he’s trying harder to speak correctly; of course, you have to stop him
and make him face you, but he’s doing better with longer words and
syllables,” Daniel said. “He’s trying harder for the different letter sounds
in the words. He’s noticing that there’s more to that one word he kind of
knew and could babble out.”
In the last week-and-a-half of Jaxon having a cochlear, Meagan said she has
noticed more stares and whispers from people when they are out in public.
While the extra attention doesn’t bother her, she said she wishes people
would ask questions instead of staring.
“A lot of people just stare at him and the device he wears, and then some
people do ask questions,” Meagan said. “It’s OK to ask questions.”
As to society’s perception of deafness as a handicap, the Baxters said they
would never put that label on their healthy, happy child.
“We are very fortunate that Jaxon’s only problem is hearing loss,” Daniel
said. “I don’t view him as handicapped in that way. Seeing other kids that
have more problems than him, it would almost be insulting to them to call
him handicapped. He is perfectly normal besides the hearing loss.”
As for the family’s future plans, Jaxon’s progress with the cochlear on his
right ear will be evaluated, and if it appears he is progressing well, he
may have the left side done, as well.
“The doctors told us 80 to 90 percent of the benefit of cochlear he’ll get
from just one, so a second one is just for fine-tuning,” Daniel said. “They
said they weren’t even going to discuss the second one until he’s had this
one for three months and we can see how well he is progressing.”
“If this works like we’re hoping it will, he’ll be able to go mainstream in
school. He could even go to Hudson,” Meagan said. “We’re just thankful for
the progress we have for now.”
Jessica Cooley’s email address is [email protected].
Source:
http://lufkindailynews.com/news/local/article_9d065246-1319-11e1-b7f6-001cc4c03286.html