Pretty Cool Day at work

People often ask if it is tough to work for a children’s hospital since I have to see sick kids every day.  And while it is tough at times, last week is a perfect example of why it is pretty darn good to work here.

 

First a quick little background, the mom of a girl, about a year old, had noticed that the baby wasn’t responding to sounds very much.  She took her to her local doctor, who referred her to a specialist, who in turn referred her to Packard.  It turns out that the baby was nearly 100% deaf in both ears.  The girl then underwent cochlear implant surgery about a month ago, a surgery that I was able to be in and take pictures of.  The surgery was incredible, imagine the size of a 1-year-old’s ear, they are tiny to begin with, and the instruments that the doctor used were so small.  The surgery went perfect.

 

Fast forward a month and the little girl and her parents were back and ready to have the implants turned on.  I stood in the room with the parents, the little girl and the doctor as she used a computer to slowly raise the volume.  The little girl was banging some blocks on the desk, the doctor kept raising the volume ever so slightly, and then all of a sudden the little girl looked up at her mom and started to cry.  She stopped crying and went back to banging the blocks together, and again got tears in her eyes and crawled over to dad.  This little girl had gone a year without sound.  The little girl was now able to hear.

 

It really was a special moment, seeing a little girl hear for the first time.  Seeing the parents call her name and her react brought tears to their eyes.  A smile to the doctor’s face.  These are the reasons that make it easy to work at a children’s hospital.