If anyone had suggested to me just a few years ago that my deaf daughter should undergo intricate operations on both ears to receive cochlear implants, I would have recoiled. Believe me, I wanted Ruthie to be able to hear -- and speak. Her progressive hearing loss had been identified when she was 2, by which point she was profoundly deaf and almost entirely lacking in language. My husband, Aaron, and I felt a decided sense of urgency to get her communicating. We arranged for Ruthie to have surgery on her left ear when she was nearly 3.
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