CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Saturday morning at the kitchen table I knew immediately that something was up. Mom and Dad stared at me, expectantly. Neither seemed interested in the full breakfast plates in front of them.
“What’s going on?”
Sit down, Mark, Dad signed.
Sitting down, I signed: What is it?
We just learned that your father’s health insurance will cover cochlear implant surgery, Mom signed. Do you know what that is?
I knew what the implant was. I shook my head. Some of the kids at school have them, I signed. The artificial hearing device stimulates nerves inside the ear. The implant has a microphone that detects sound. The microphone sends the sound to a speech processor, like a mini-computer. The sound is coded and sent through the skin to the implant.
We wanted to talk to you abou
