Shelby has been experiencing life without sound for the last few months. After chosing to give her speech processor a bath, it wasn't working very well. Our audiologist replaced the processor for us, but was unable to cover the broken coil. We haven't had the money to replace this part as of yet, so Shelby has had no sound.

As much as I would like Shelby to have sound, it is not a bad thing that she has been without either. Her signing skills have improved greatly and so have ours. She is learning what it means to be deaf. We do plan on getting her up and running again so that she will have that tool available to her, but it has been an interesting and challenging time for us.

So for our family, we appreciate that Shelby is deaf and glad that she is ok with that. We are also thankful that she has the capability of a cochlear implant and understands that it is a tool to help her and not something to depend on.

Teaching reading has taking on a new challenge without any sound. She tries very hard and is very motivated to read. She uses a lot of lip reading. In January we will be starting a new curriculum created for deaf children. I will be sharing how that works.