Last week Ethan had the opportunity to participate in a Bilateral Cochlear Implant study at OHSU. The hope is to develop a deeper understanding of the benefits of being bilateral. Ethan was a champ.

Don Plapinger who is the Director of Clinical Audiology has known Ethan since Ethan was almost three years old. I seriously thought on several occasions he was going to break down and cry over the astounding accomplishments Ethan has made.

I got to sit in on the testing and learned some very important things about Ethan. I was shocked. Basically Ethan was asked to repeat about 20 complete sentences. One series was with one CI on, no back round noise, absolute quiet. Which he successfully did. The next with one CI on and back round noise. He just sat in his chair...waiting...waiting and then he would turn around and tell me he could not hear the man talking. With just on CI and back round noise Ethan could not discern the man's voice. This test was repeated with both sides the same depressing results. I was shocked!!!

Then when both CI's were on, with quiet, no back round noise,again he was able to articulate word perfect, even with the same tones used in the sentence. I was feeling already a little bit depressed over the earlier results of just one CI being worn. However, much to my surprise with back round noise, TWO CI's, Ethan was able to repeat back, word perfect each sentence.

People do you hear what I am saying. This is amazing information to have. Being bilateral makes an absolute difference in Ethan's ability to clearly hear. Don was blown away by how well Ethan does. I was even surprised, even after knowing how well he does in school and at home and around town, to be shown the importance of two CI's.

This study comes on the heals of spending the morning with a friend at a local race. About 20,000 people showed up for this race here in Portland called the Shamrock run. My friend wears a CI and only has one. She could not hear, even her cell phone ringing. When someone called she handed me the phone to relay the message. When others spoke, she did not respond. She has commented many times at how well Ethan does in a very large crowd. I figured it was just that he's a brilliant kid, which he is. But seeing how he does in a crowd amazes me all the time. Now understanding the benefits of two just blows me away.

To see him sitting in the chair during the study, with just one CI on not responding at all to the voice speaking with noise piped in for back round shocked me. I am so pleased that we opted for Ethan, on his behalf to be bilateral.

We were met with some criticism over this decision. You know, he should be able to make his own decision when he is older, new technology may come along that is better, he is having the opportunity of ever being able to hear if you go bilateral...and so on.

By the way, this being the midyear school report Ethan has once again made Honor Roll. He gets his purple award and get to go and buy a Lego set. I love saying...."Ethan is deaf people, not dumb". Thanks for reading.