Thursday, June 2, 2011

Giving Myself Permission

Tonight is one of those nights where I'm going to flat out say that it SUCKS that Christian is deaf.  He's overtired, and when he's overtired, he has restless nights. Sometimes he has nightmares. Tonight, he's woken up screaming 3 times already and it's only 10:30.  Moms of deaf kids will confirm that these screams aren't your typical screams. They are blood-curdling, so loud that the neighbors might call the police screams. I run into his room, and do my best to comfort him with my touch. I keep it dark so not to scare him,  but that also means he can't see my crude signing and read my lips. So I pick up my sack-of-potato 43 pound bruiser and carry him into the kitchen. I dim the lights, sit him at his chair at the table, pour a glass of water and run back into his room. I fumble in his closet to put one of his processors together, as he just cries and cries back in the kitchen.

The light on his processor turns on, and he goes quiet.

I ask him what's wrong. I ask what I can do for him.

"Mom, I couldn't hear! I couldn't hear! I'm thirsty! I couldn't hear!"

And my heart breaks. No matter how thankful I am for the miracle of the CI, it doesn't change that he's deaf. My sweet little boy.

6 comments:

tammy said...

Aiden gets up 5 out of 7 nights a week doing this, seriously. He typically ends up in bed with us, his arms tightly wrapped around my neck, his cheek on my cheek, like he's scared to let me go. I hate this for him.

Anonymous said...

wow, i dont think i ve ever experienced that with hearing aids but it seem like he is adjusting it like a late-deafened.

as a deaf person its ok to turn on the light. you're not harming him

Lily's Mom said...

We go through the same thing with Lily. It breaks my heart. I hate to admit it, but she has been sleeping in our bed since she was a baby. The only thing that would comfort her was/is to touch me at night because she can't see in the dark and she can't hear anything. Even still, she sometimes wakes up crying for her "ears." So we have started something new. Her new processors (the N5s) go in the dry-n-store and the batteries go on the charger. We take her old processors (the freedoms) to bed with us and I put them on the headboard all put together so all I have to do is power them on. When she asks for them, I turn them on and put them on her. When she falls back asleep, I take them off again. Then the next morning, she puts her N5s back on and we charge the Freedom batteries and put the Freedoms in the dry-n-store during the day. That's how we've been handling it.

leah said...

Oh, Tina - that breaks my heart, too! We have a dimmer switch on the boys' bedroom, and Nolan insists that it stay "on" (we put it to the lowest setting, like a night light). We had to put Nolan to bed in his hearing aids for a while, but he doesn't seem to care anymore...

I wonder if you could be a touch-lamp and put it next to the bed, so he could turn on the light if he got scared??

Amy said...

Hi, I'm Ava's mom (For the Love of Ava). I'm not sure if we've written on each other's blogs or not. I just wanted to chime in here. While Ava has CI's, I have hearing aids but without them I can't hear a thing. I hope you don't think I'm crazy but speaking from experience (as a mom of 5) I really don't believe that any of our deaf kids are upset that they can't hear at night. (it was never an issue for me as a child) These are all normal toddler nightime interruptions and not deaf related. Trust me one day he will LOVE taking those CI's off at night and RELISH total silence at bedtime. It really is wonderful (in my case anyway).
What you describe are normal toddler/preschool night terrors and are common. It may help to ensure that he is not overtired and he has a consistent bedtime routine. Most of these night terrors happen 2-3 hours after they fall asleep and some parents even wake their kids up before a night terror would normally occur. Just my two cents. Hope I have helped :)

JMF said...

:( He is lucky he has you, my friend.