Heartwarming footage caught the moment a ten-month-old Virginia baby heard his parents’ voices for the first time after receiving a cochlear implant.
Everett Colley of Yorktown was born with total hearing loss in both ears, according to WTKR.
He underwent cochlear implant surgery on December 6 and received the internal parts of the device, according to Metro.
“Cochlear implants use a sound processor that fits behind the ear,” per the Mayo Clinic. “The processor captures sound signals and sends them to a receiver implanted under the skin behind the ear. The receiver sends the signals to electrodes implanted in the snail-shaped inner ear (cochlea).”
On December 20, the processor was attached, enabling him to hear. Footage obtained by Daily Mail shows Everett listening to his parents, Ashley and Zachary, for the first time.
“Everett, hi! Can you hear mommy?” Ashley asked her son, prompting him to smile wide and tuck himself into her chest.
“Do you hear me talking to you? Yeah, I’m talking to you,” said Zachary, causing the infant face to light up before he cozied up to his mother a second time.
Ashley says signs first emerged that Everett had hearing trouble soon after birth.
“They do a newborn screening in the hospital before we leave, and he failed that,” Ashley told WTKR. “[It’s] totally normal, common, so I didn’t think anything of it.”
The mother told the outlet that Everett has always been a bit more difficult to soothe than her other children. At first, doctor’s believed the infant’s hearing troubles could be due to a fluid build-up.
“Then I went back for an auditory brain response test and that’s when she [the doctor] pulled her chair up and she said he has profound hearing loss,” Ashley told Metro.
The doctor’s words left her in shock.
“That’s all I remember, and everything else was a blur, I felt I was kind of looking through her,” Ashley stated.
Ashley and Everett were alone to receive the news due to coronavirus protocols while Zachary waited for them in the car.
“I just remember struggling to get out of the hospital and breaking down as soon as I saw him,” Ashley recalled to Metro.
Doctors suggested the cochlear implants for Everett, which led to this month’s procedure. Now that Everett can hear with his implant, he has displayed an affinity for music and listening to his family, according to Metro.
The ordeal has given the Colleys a new perspective.
“Instead of thinking about hearing loss as a bad thing, we think of it as a blessing,” Ashley told Metro.
“Hearing is something we take for granted, but try not to hark on the bad things – it’s a beautiful life that they live,” she added.