One year post activation we move to the Town Home.

Okay, I know there's more to Matt's first year of activation, but we'll get back to that later. For now, I need to move forward with the story. Don't worry, my scatterbrained mind will pick up the pieces latter. :)

Matt's first year post CI activation went real well. He was three, progressing well, in an excellent all day school program, we were really starting to settle down in our "new" life. Pieces were falling into place. And then Hubby's job stepped in. They had seen fit to promote my husband and move the family. We were moving to the Town Home.

"WHAT THE HECK IS OVER THERE? You mean I have to drag my deaf kid to a new home for a stinkin' year while you go to school? Where will HE go to school? What kind of doctors do they have there?" I had many questions, we had no answers.

The army was looking out for our best interest, and sent us to to check out the area. See if it would meet my son's medical and educational needs. This is available through the Exceptional Family Member Program, and is approved on a case-by-case basis.

I was not thrilled with the first school system we visited. It lumped all of the children together, not disability specific. There was no real deaf ed for my son in that program, rather an itinerate deaf ed teacher that could visit the class on a regular basis. Whatever that meant. Matt was used to and benefiting from extensive speech and communication therapy, in a strongly oral TC program. I could not put him in an environment that I considered such a huge leap down from what he already had.

The schools did not allow children to bus from one district to another for a better program. They also discouraged against "school shopping" for the what we considered the best for our son. I think someone even told me that was considered "illegal". Huh? I told her that it would be a waste of my time and hers to live in her district, spend the whole year with me forcing her to provide appropriately for my son, and then have to move to another state. Not to mention a possible year of my son's education wasted. So we kept looking at other schools.

We looked at two other programs and an oral-only school. We finally settled on a public school, half-day, deaf/hoh program. Two factors were key for me at that time: Matt's teacher would be a man, possibly a good role model, and the speech pathologist had over ten years experience with habilitating CI children! Sold! I was warned against and absolutely under no circumstances would look at the state School for the Deaf in Olathe. At that time, anyway. More on that later...

We settled into the Town Home some time before school started, and were bored. We didn't know anyone! Here we were--transplanted from a fast paced locale where rude glares at my son's head were the norm, to Hicksville, USA, where strangers would not only tell you the time of day but then proceed on with their life stories! Who were these people? Again, WHAT IN THE HECK WERE WE DOING IN THE NEW TOWN HOME? Not much TO do. We spent a lot of time at the library.

Matt missed his old friends big time. It was so hard to take him away from a warm and comfortable place to "Quiet Country" with no friends but Mom, Dad and Baby Brother Christopher. So finally I decided to go to a church around the corner, just to meet some other people. Actually, I went to church only during Sunday School so Matt could meet some other kids.

I had checked into the church, stopped in earlier for a visit. The lady who ran Sunday School told me there was another boy there who was recently implanted, and would be in Matt's class. No way! She didn't think he'd be there that day, though, because he had been absent since his surgery. Maybe he was still healing? So we went to class. I decided to hang and translate for Matt, so he didn't feel so alone and lost w/o friends. He was one year post implant, understood quite a bit of vocabulary, but still needed some help to follow what was said.

So guess who walks in? The other Implanted Boy and his Mother!!!!! No kidding! I knew immediately who they were, jumped up and introduced myself. Her son was just implanted with the same implant Matt has, and was going to be activated the very next day! This was so cool, we were hopping up and down, practically shrieking! Crazy ladies, yes, but very excited to find our own little support group. Our sons were not only in the same Sunday School together, but they would be in the same class when the public school year started!

We were just talking about this when something even stranger happened. Someone else came to visit that church for the very first time, right then and there. He was coming to the class to drop off his daughter for HER first visit to Sunday School. Believe it or not, it was Matt's future school teacher! I am absolutely not kidding. We gals were so excited I think we freaked the poor guy out. But it was such an amazing morning! In a short time I had made a friend, my son had a peer and buddy, and I had met Matt's future school teacher!

I'll write more about the Town Home State later. It turned out to be an absolutely wonderful year. The folk were so nice it took me months to figure out that their kindness was genuine. I'm not saying people at our old place weren't as nice and kind, but the new place was a completely different world. A few of the ladies there became some of the best friends I've ever made, Matt ended up with top notch medical/CI care, and the schooling was better than I could have ever imagined. This was not what I had expected, but it's the something I still miss today. :)