Whispers of relief.

We are so relieved to report that Priya is back to normal volume with her implants after a very challenging month.  This whole experience just about put us over the edge.  Now, she actually asks to put them on herself.  She also insists on wearing them to bed at night. I am sure so that she can hear and participate in the craziness with her brothers before they all fall to sleep.

This morning, I whispered a couple of questions to her without her looking at me and reading my lips.  She answered the questions!  It is at times like these that all the challenges of cochlear implants seem worth it.  I sometimes have to remind myself that she is profoundly deaf.  She can hear me whisper!

this is not what we signed up for...

Stolen implant in Bangkok, Thailand with the replacement back at home in Mussoorie.

Came back to Mussoorie, only to find out that the replacement was broken.

Her records have not yet been transferred to the Delhi clinic so we have to do everything Stateside.

12 hour time difference and bad cell phone and internet connection make it extremely hard to get a hold of our support team Stateside.

Time continues to go by without a right implant...her auditory nerve is not being stimulated.

The US Cochlear Corporation will not ship internationally.

Our audiologist in the US agrees to ship the implants personally to us.

We wait for them to arrive.

All of the things that we could have done to prevent this haunt us.

Time continues to go by without a right implant...her auditory nerve is not being stimulated.

We worry and wait.

The implants are tracked to be in Delhi.

We get excited to receive the implant within a couple of days.

The implant then becomes untrackable, and not deliverable due to inclement weather.

We call and never get an answer as to where it is or when it will arrive.

Finally, after many late nights on the phone and internet we get ahold of someone who gives us a name and address.

We drive an hour to Dehra Dun to pick up the package that had been sitting on a man’s desk for 5 days.

UPS INDIA is not the way to ship.  Who knew?

We are frustrated with the systems in India.  The package should have been delivered a week earlier.  It did not cost us $99 to just sit on a man’s desk who was not doing his job. 

We drive back up to our house with relief, but now thinking of how to get her to wear this after no sound in her right ear for 1 month.

We put the implant on her at volume 0!

She screams, fights, says “Priya scared”.  The sound is too overwhelming.  We have to hold her down.

We panic and cry and wonder why we are here?  Should we just go home?  This is just too hard.

Our clinic in Delhi assures us to keep trying.

We wait and she settles down later and wears it for 4 hours.

Slowly we are hoping to get her back to her “normal” with the implant.  This will not come without patience.

We feel defeated and worn.

Priya inspires us to fight for what is hard.

This is not what we signed up for.

napping on our drive to retrieve the implant.

trying to find the location of the "UPS Office"?

the goods.

Communication In Design

For all you engineering & architecture geeks out there (or my mom who reads everything on this site).  Click here to check out this article that I recently wrote for an eMi publication regarding communicating design concepts to nontechnical people in the developing world.

Southern slice of the great Himalayas.

Our visas require us to be out of the country every 6 months.  This usually should mean that we can take a day or two and go to Nepal, cross the border, get things stamped and come right back in and continue our work.  Recently, the government changed visa rules and so we had to go to the consulate in Thailand to get dependent visas for the kids and me.  This change has been very important for us and looming ever since our arrival in India.  We were advised to go up North to Chiang Mai and work with the Indian Consulate there.  We were sad to not enjoy the Thai beaches, but the North was lush, green and mystical.  It was fascinating to see the southern side of the Himalayas.  After a week of paperwork and waiting, our visas were granted!

On the first day of our trip, we got our camera bag stolen in the food court of a large mega mall.  It happened to have one of Priya’s implants in it.  The implant had run out of batteries and we had placed it in the bag.  We suffered a huge loss with this bag and are still trying to replace the implant and get sound to her right ear again.  This has been a significant and impacting challenge!  

In the midst of a stolen bag and visa work, we somehow managed to enjoy a taste of Thailand and spend some quality time as a family.  We had the Lonely Planet at hand and a long list of things to see and do in my little pocket notebook, but often had to tell ourselves that we have three little toddlers in the group and need to keep things simple.  This is hard for us at times.  

Luckily, our little video camera was not in the stolen bag and we were able to take a few still shots with it.

Little Everett...7.9.09

The first year of your life has been dynamic.  Your birth was so memorable, racing to the hospital, running red lights in the early morning and barely making it up to the room before it was time for you to arrive.  It was a magical rush of mind and body that we will never forget.  Hudson still loves to hear the story of your birth.  It is his favorite.  Now exactly one year later at 4:17AM which is about 2:47PM in India, you are zooming around Delhi traffic with your "ma ma", daddy, Hudson and Priya in an auto rickshaw.  It is about 100 degrees with high humidity and you look around sweaty and flushed, but not phased at all!


The first year of life has been a pivotal one for the whole family.  You have been along on so many trips to North Platte, Colorado, St. Louis(when you were 6 days old) and Portland to see beloved friends and family.  You have experienced many hard good-byes.  You have flown to India, moved to the Himalayas and already been on a trek.  You have seen the Taj Mahal.  You have greeted many new faces with ease and learned to eat Indian food.  You have slept in all kinds of places including a "chair bed" for the first 3 months in India.  You have been a passenger in every imaginable kind of transportation...plane, car, train, taxi, auto rick shaw, sling, backpack, cycle rick shaw and bus.  You have watched the monkeys out our front window and danced at an Indian wedding.


Even in the midst of a lot of chaos and change for a little baby you charm us each day, make us smile and remind us of the simple little joys.  Hudson and Priya adore you.  They love to wrestle with you and make you laugh in your crib before bed at night and first thing in the morning.  You are not afraid to get into the mix!  You are a loving, adaptable, busy, active and on the move, crawling one year old.  I believe that your dynamic birth and first year of life is an indication of the kind of boy and man you will be and we can't wait to be a part of it  Cheers to this second year little E!