I Rock?!

I want to thank my good friend AVTcoach for honoring me with a wonderful blogger award! 

My friend, I'm not sure I rock, but if I remotely resemble someone who does..I think I owe YOU some of the credit!

You see, for those of you who aren't aware, my sweet baby girl Malia was diagnosed at 2 1/2 years old with a a severe hearing loss.  With that dx, I was, in a word...shellshocked.  I remember coming home that spring afternoon and just lying across my bed sobbing as if the world was about to come to an end.  All the dreams, hopes, and preconceived plans I had for her were dashed in an instant.  The weeks following our heart wrenching news were a blur.  Oh yeah, sure, I went through the motions.  Took Miss M to get earmolds for those ugly hearing aids, smiled my best fake smile when everyone around me told me how great things were going to be..yada, yada, yada.

Once we got the hearing aids we then had to set up therapy.  Yeah.  I remember that day driving to her first appointment thinking, Ok, I'll drop her off, go grab a treat at Walgreen's then sit in my car and wait until her therapy was over.  We walk in and make our introductions with Malia's speech therapist.  I keep waiting for that pause in conversation where she says "ok, thanks mom...we'll be done in an hour" but instead I pull up a chair and our new therapist puts me to work!  Say what?!  That was the day I woke up and and everything started to come into focus.  It was gonna be a joint effort to get Malia to speak and listen and there were no views from the cheap seats to sit in on this ride!  I remember that first visit feeling very intrusive. Who WAS this woman to ask such nosey questions, I thought to myself.  

Well, 4 plus years later let me tell you who THIS woman IS....she is the one person who helped me plant my feet firmly and gave me hope that Malia can do amazing things, but she needs my help.  And not just for an hour at therapy once a week.  Every mundane detail of our lives were going to be put under a microscope and brought into focus for the sole purpose of getting language into my daughters veins.  This woman helped me see when hearing aids weren't working well enough and explained that if I truly wanted Malia to mainstream with her peers, our only option were cochlear implants.  She sat on the phone with me while I cried my eyes out when I realized she was right.  She has held my hand every step of the way and even though Malia has "graduated" from her speech sessions, she still checks in on us and wants to know where and how she can help.  

W - Thank you for your professionalism, thank you for your sincerity, and thank you for being bold enough to get us here.  You were so right about Malia.  She is a treasure and we marvel how we got so lucky.

Now...I'm suppose to award someone else...but after this long post how can I??  W- YOU ROCK...PERIOD!