Deaf Child with Implant in ICU, Fighting for His Life

On Easter Sunday of 2008, a Deaf child was fighting for his life in the intensive care unit at a hospital. One month ago his mother rushed him to the emergency room after she discovered that his ear was bleeding. The doctors quickly unwrapped the makeshift bandaging and discovered that there was a cochlear implant in his left ear. One of the doctors discovered a clot in his ear. He is now blind in his left eye and colorblind in his right eye. He will never again see the color of the landscapes of this world. He's stuck with needing to have gauze pads covering his eyes, otherwise he will throw up every time he opens his eyes.

He can't walk. He has completely lost his ability to balance himself. And he is still experiencing intermittent bleeding in his ear. Internal bleeding in the brain is a dangerous possibility. His mother has a cochlear implant, but her implant is broken and she hasn't used it for many years. The boy's grandmother insisted that his mother get him implanted. The boy himself put pressure on his mother, claiming that it supposedly wasn't fair that other children were being implanted but that he wasn't. The grandmother's rationale was that CI technology has improved and that it will keep improving. Then mother then made the unfortunate decision to go ahead with the operation. Because of that decision, he is now in the ICU fighting for his life, and he may not live to see the world. It breaks my heart.

When I was younger we didn't have to worry about whether or not we would die or become physically damaged. But today, we have to worry about which one of our children will be next to fall into the pit of physical and emotional despair, with their future being destroyed and taken away from them. How could we ignore the fact that the risk involved in cochlear implant surgery is unacceptably high? A certain percentage of children will experience life-altering and severe complications, and this is supposed to be acceptable?

It is not first time this has happened in my experience, and it will not be the last time that I will see such a thing. There will be more tragic incidents to come. I will not allow these children who are injured by CI surgery to be made invisible and be pushed the side where no one will think about them. If we do not do something to raise awareness on this issue, then the very real possibility exists that these institutions will be taken over in the future by the many ex-CI users to come whose bodies were damaged by the implantation surgery.

Is there anyone out there who wants to tell me to just forget about these beautiful Deaf children whose health was ruined by either CI surgery or the post-surgical effects?

I respect people who dedicate themselves and volunteer their time to make sure that Deaf babies have access to sign language. I support that 100 percent. They have a laudable passionate for ASL. And it should also be OK for others of us to dedicate our time to making sure the babies and children are kept absolutely SAFE and not subjected to RISK when they don't have to be! Right now, cochlear implants are not safe--not safe for all infants or children. Some are lucky and escape harm, others are not. The FDA should not approve anything that involves such a degree of random chance that it puts infants and children at risk. The main thing is that the children be protected from harm and be kept healthy. Healthy children still might encounter challenging issues in their lives, and that's OK, but we should not subject them to risk of this type.