CI Kiddos

We have been happy with the Freedom, but with every upgrade there are improvements. My 7 1/2 year old daughter's insurance/warranty for her Freedom will be up in two years and them it will be replaced with the newest device. I always look forward to seeing the newest devices and what they can do!!

My daughter was implanted with a Freedom in November of 06 and with the Nucleus 5 this past December. She gets activated on January 29th and I plan on using her Nucleus 5 backup on the ear that was implanted with the Freedom so she can have the Nucleus 5 for both ears. I will let you know what differences we see!

The upgrade is definitely worth it according to my husband and I! Our son is 20 months old and was also implanted with the Freedom (right ear at 11 mo. and his left ear at 13 mo). He was very fortunate to be part of the pediatric trial of using the N5 processor with the Freedom implant (when he was ~ 16 mo. old - thus ~5 mo implanted on the right and ~3 mo implanted on the left) and we couldn't be more thankful or humbled! We immediately noticed that Clint responds to sounds outside (in the wind) much better! He even heard my husband call out his name from the barn (~90 feet away) - this was a first! I don't know how to put into words the changes we saw/heard out of him - but it was obvious that something was different and in a good way!

Even my dad (Clint's g-pa) who isn't around that often has commented on how much more he seems to notice sounds, respond to his name and in general jibber-jabber and try to communicate with us.

As for getting used to the N5 vs the Freedom... I can honestly say that I depended on the remote assistant for at least 3 weeks before I felt comfortable knowing what program was on, the volume, etc. I still use the remote to check on things periodically, but not everyday. I have learned the blinking patterns and feel pretty comfortable knowing what settings are on.

Yes, it is an investment, but one that I feel is very worthy!! Good luck!