Jackson and Chase
Walk4Hearing Featured Walkers
Our Hearing Journey
By Corinne Walters
Our first son Jackson was born in 2011, a perfect, healthy bundle of joy. When he didn’t pass the newborn hearing screening, our lives changed forever. He was diagnosed profoundly deaf at 5-weeks-old. As a hearing family, we feared he would never hear our voices and we wouldn’t know how to communicate with him. We knew nothing about hearing loss, but we’re up for the challenge of dominating it!
Jackson got his hearing aids at 9-weeks-old, began Auditory Verbal Therapy, and started babbling away. He stayed on target developmentally and was saying "Mama" and "Dada" at 9-months-old, despite only being able to hear maybe half of all speech. At 10-months-old he received his first cochlear implant, and four months later, his second. Today, people say to us, “He talks well for just turning two,” and we smile thinking back to the days when we wondered if he would ever speak. He tells us when he hears birdies chirping and the wind blowing outside.
In 2013, our second son Chase was born, and we discovered he had the same hearing loss as his big brother. However, we were calm and we knew we had nothing to worry about. We were excited to watch him take the same amazing journey that Jackson had, and to give him the gift of hearing that we are so fortunate to have available with modern technology.
We joined the Hartford Walk4Hearing in 2012 and we walked again in 2013. We see it as an opportunity to thank the local programs who have given us so much support in this journey. We have been overwhelmed with the family and friends who have joined us, and are grateful to be able to raise awareness about hearing loss and show others that there is NOTHING our deaf boys can’t do! We wouldn’t have our family any other way.
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