Not long until boy says ‘mommy’

MANISHA Pillay is looking forward to the day when her little two-year-old boy, Jeremiah, hears his first sounds and learns to speak.

“I can’t wait for the day my baby calls me mommy,” she said.

The little boy was born deaf after she had endured a stressful four-day labour.

“When we were told he had a hearing problem, my husband and I felt helpless,” she told the Sunday Times Extra.

Pillay, 20, of Laudium, said Jeremiah communicated by facial expression and actions. “It has been a huge adjustment for us having to learn to live with a child with a hearing disability — but he is intelligent and makes an effort to communicate with us.

“When he is hungry he opens the fridge, and when he needs a nappy change he brings me his wet wipes.”

But soon all that will change for Jeremiah and his mom and dad.

He went for a cochlear implant operation at the Steve Biko Hospital in Pretoria, and in a few weeks’ time their worlds will not be the same again.

In January, his implant will be switched on and he will hear his mother’s voice for the first time.

“Jeremiah is a lucky child,” Pillay said. “We are grateful to the people who helped us and made this operation possible.”

Pillay said Jeremiah would need speech therapy, but the operation was a success and the boy was at home “in pain, but he is recovering”.

The hospital’s marketing and resource mobilisation manager, Elmarie Davies, said the operation entailed implanting a device in the patient’s cochlea. It compensates for the loss of sensory hair cells in the cochlea responsible for hearing.