Activation Day! (or, Lola Gets Turned On)

Today was the big day! We caravaned to the doctor's office for Lola's implant activation. Mommy, Daddy, Uncle Justin and Uncle John were in attendance.

Our audiologist Dr. Windmill attached the magnet to test the electrodes for the first time:


Why, whatever could this be? Lola wondered:


A series of beeps sounded while Dr. Windmill adjusted the levels. Lola seemed very interested:


The doctor adjusted four of the sixteen electrodes today. This is what Lola's face looked like most of the time:

Then she decided it would be more fun to play and wave:


The audiologist then officially "switched her on." Lola was hearing live sound for the first time! She didn't react strongly, but seemed to be concentrating very hard on everything. She was very interested when Uncle John clapped his hands:

After a while of playing and banging on everything in sight, they fitted Lola with a not-so-stylish harness to hold her processor while she's still little:

After that, we went home and crammed lots of sound into that little girl! We go back to the audiologist every couple weeks so she can fine-tune the program. Every couple days until then we turn the volume up a little so as to not scare her.

Stay tuned for more -- possibly a video, if I can figure out how to put it up.