Always There

If there is one thing I had to say would always be there for for me no matter what, it would be doubt.  I never can seem to shake that.  We have gone around and around about whether to get Emmeline a CI, which one to get and when to get it.  After one false alarm, we are finally on the schedule AND have our authorization from insurance.  Bright and early (4am) tomorrow morning Emmeline and I are supposed to head to Fort Worth to have the implant installed.  Now that it is actually a reality I can't help but doubt our decision.
The kicker is, she can hear us.  Every once in a while she'll just perk up and say "I hear a bird" or whatever quiet background noise is going on.  It shakes us.  It would be easier to decide if she were totally deaf.  There wouldn't be so many options then.  We would feel more solid.  As is it she understand most of what we say and can hear most things.  Her doctors keep talking about the benefits of 2 good ears and that she will function better in groups.  It's still hard.  By doing this, they will probably silence her left ear.  Right now she can hear tones at normal levels in the left but is probably not able to distinguish pitches or speech.  Due to her anatomy, during the surgery spinal fluid will probably flood her cochlear and kill any remaining hairs that are functioning in there. If the CI doesn't work she would be out of luck.  This is our shot.  We could leave it and hope better technology comes along and maybe cause her a developmental delays or we could push ahead and hope her CI functions properly and she is actually able to hear. (This, like any other surgery has the risk of not working).  If it doesn't work she will still be stuck silent. There is no reversal for the damage.

Blerg.