Testimonials

FZ's Testimony

I first began talking to Barbara, Farah's mother, in either 2016 or 2017. We were connected through our mutual audiologist because Barbara was a seasoned and experienced parent to a child with cochlear implants and I was just beginning my journey as a parent to a child with hearing loss since my oldest child, then four years old at the time, was diagnosed with a progressive hearing loss. There's a tremendous sense of loss and guilt when you realize what your child is going through and think about various possible futures for them with hearing loss. Barbara had so much knowledge to share with me and was a truly fantastic resource at the time as her daughter had also followed a very similar path to my own with an early childhood progressive hearing loss. I am so glad to have been able to have Barbara and Farah as resources in the early days of navigating the medical and social worlds of cochlear implant users, which were entirely new to us. Thankfully, I feel as though my daughter (who is now 11 years old and has been using two cochlear implants since age 6) is thriving and experiencing almost everything in life from friendships to activities the way typically hearing kids do. Having an advocate alongside you for the rough journey of getting there is truly valuable, and I'm so grateful that Barbara and Farah were there for us during the early and toughest days from diagnosis to the cochlear implant surgeries.