HearSay
our in-house author blog
Tanya Saunders is an author, illustrator, lover of wild places and mother to twin daughters, one of whom is profoundly deaf. She founded AVID Language to help inspire deaf children to dream big and reach for the stars. Tanya blogs about her experiences of parenting a deaf child alongside a hearing sibling, writing, publishing and the latest AVID Language news.*
*Views and opinions are entirely Tanya’s own, and not necessarily representative of AVID Language Ltd as a whole.
Out with the old, in with the new!
Can it really be almost four months since my previous post? I guess that happens when too much life comes to pass all at once…since writing last, I have released two children’s books—one for six to eight-year-olds, the other for very early listeners—it was our twins’ seventh birthday, then Christmas came along, then another lockdown and home-schooling again (all accompanied by constant puppy chaos) and, as you will know if you have been following my intermittent blog ramblings, our daughter Onna had her bilateral cochlear implant revision surgery. That was back in October already, and if you don’t mind, I’m going to take you back there now and describe it all in some detail, as some readers may be curious to know how it all went and whether or not my pre-op anxiety was justified – especially if said readers are facing a similar situation with their own children.
The bumps in the road
No-one ever said that navigating the hearing loss journey alongside your deaf child was going to be plain sailing. And it’s true. It’s hard. It’s exhausting. It’s frightening at times. But then, it’s also equally joyous and rewarding and often simply incredible! The truth is, no matter how many bumps in the road you encounter (some families unfortunately encounter many more than others), you pretty much know there will be another one coming at some stage. When it comes, each bump has the power to punch you in the gut, completely knocking the wind out of your sails.