Rachel Kathryn

Welcome to Rachel's webpage. We decided that this would be the best way to keep everyone posted on Rachel's journey into the hearing world. Thank you for reading and for your endless prayers, love and support! We appreciate it more than you know.

Rachel Kathryn Skergan was born to David and Natalie Skergan and big sister Sarah on September 17, 2003 at 4:53AM at Duke University Medical Center. She was the product of a healthy and normal pregnancy and delivery and had APGAR scores of 9 and 9. Rachel failed her newborn hearing screen and was diagnosed with bilateral severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss. She began wearing hearing aids at 3 months of age in December 2003 and started Auditory-Verbal therapy at that time. She received her MED-EL CI in her Left ear on July 20, 2004 and was age appropriate with her language development by one year post-CI activation- thank you to her wonderful Cert. AVT, Kathryn Wilson. Rachel received a second CI (bilateral) in her Right ear on May 23, 2006. Her surgery was again performed by Dr. Buchman at UNC Hospital. He did another excellent job. Her new CI was activated on June 6, 2006. We are thankful for the wonderful services provided for Rachel from the staff at UNC-Chapel Hill and the state of North Carolina.

We have also been blessed to meet many families locally and across the country with hearing impaired children as well as hearing impaired adults. They have been so helpful in educating us and supporting us in this new world. Fortunately, everyone is very willing to help and share information. Thank you!

And a very very special thank you to all of the fantastic professionals who are working with Rachel and us. We are so blessed to have so many dedicated and experienced individuals committed to helping Rachel learn to hear and speak!

Be Happy For This Moment. This Moment is Your Life.
-Omar Khayyam

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

Journal

Tuesday, November 14, 2006 7:32 PM EST

"We're really happy."

That is what Rachel said one night when she was having a tickle party in Sarah's bed with Sarah, Sophie and Daddy. I thought it was so neat how she could verbally express her feelings and the feelings of everyone at that moment. I love when she puts language to her feelings and expresses herself like that!

I wanted to share a situation that happened a few weeks ago that illustrates one of the key reasons we decided to have Rachel bilaterally implanted and why we are so glad and thankful that she has bilateral CIs. One day, at the end of Preschool, I picked up Rachel and Sarah and when we got into the van, Rachel touched her Right speech processor and said "This side is not working." Of course, device failure and reimplantation surgery is the first thought that comes into my mind whenever she reports that her CI does not sound right or isn't working right.
TO BE CONTINUED....One of the girls needs me so I have to close for now, but I will come back and finish this story later.

Read Journal History

Hospital Information:

University of North Carolina Hospitals at Chapel Hill, NC / CCCDP (Carolina Children's Communicative Disorders Program)
101 Manning Drive
Chapel Hill, NC 27514

Links:

E-mail Author: skergan@nc.rr.com