Coping with Device Failure
Josh had been using his cochlear implant for 9 ½ years when his device started to stop working and everything would just go silent for 5 minute spurts. The ENT told him that his cochlear implant was at the end of its “life.” He realized quickly that he would need surgery to remove the implant and to get a new one. The idea of going back to the hospital and having the surgery scared him. But none of that upset him as much as the aggravation of not being able to hear all of a sudden in the middle of 10th grade!
He had important exams coming up in school and now he could not count on hearing the teacher’s voice in school – how was he going to manage?!
Also, Josh had been using his implant so successfully since he was a little kid. He couldn’t really remember a time before he was in speech therapy. He was always the only kids with a hearing loss in regular schools. He had never had to deal with feelings of anger and loss and resentment over having a hearing loss. They all rushed now:
Why did he have to be deaf?
Why did he have to be different?
Josh’s parents were beside themselves. They had always encouraged Josh to be just like the other kids, to feel like he was just like the other kids. Now at age 16 he was being faced with being different and he was so angry and moody all the time. They did not know how to help him through this stressful time.
They had to fight with everyone to get the new cochlear implant – the insurance company, the hospital scheduling bureaucracy, HELP! They were totally overwhelmed with feelings of helplessness, responsibility, and confusion about how to help Josh through this tough time.
I don’t have any easy solutions to this problem – I don’t think anyone does. But I do have some things to keep in mind:
- At this age, it is the parents’ job to guide their child in how to cope with and handle frustration, not solve their child’s problems. What an important thing to help their child learn!
- Parents can try to model healthy adult behaviors for coping with crisis:
- Communicate: TALK to your adolescent child about what is going on now and what is going to happen
- Share how you are feeling so that your adolescent child feels less alone in this – your frustrations, feelings of helplessness and wanting to do something to help, whatever you feel – demonstrate how to talk about problems
- Be honest – always be honest if you don’t know the answer, offer to find out, don’t promise anything that you can’t deliver
- Model the smart things that people need to do to hold things together in times of crisis: eat good meals, get a good night’s sleep, take a walk or do other exercise, do things that are relaxing or enjoyable – tell your child what you are doing and why
- Don’t dump your frustrations on your child – the insurance is your problem not his
- Give your child space too – it is normal at this age for adolescent children not to want to feel so dependent on their parents and not to want to talk much, don’t worry, that’s OK too
- Its OK to feel overwhelmed – give yourself a break – this is a really hard situation
- Remember that you can get through this!
Tags: adolescence, cochlear implant, coping with stress, deaf, device failure, hearing loss, parents
[...] Coping with Device Failure|Hearing Families <—-here's another example of what I mean. My parents are good parents. I would not want to be taken away from them ever! I just wanted them to be better educated. They were not ignoring me. Just that they tend to say nevermind when something is not clear to me but more often when I don't have my hearing aids. Most families do this. I do think it is bad parenting on their part for not knowing ASL. They have a big family so it is very hard for them to find the time and money all the time. I was talking to them and all, so they think everything is fine. I never told them how I felt because at the time, I felt that my deaf is a disability and it was something I have to accept. btw, my hearing loss is around 90 db which is why some audiologist think it is severe hearing loss and why other thinks it is profound. [...]