Jennifer White spent her childhood playing inside the frames of stereo speakers her father constructed. In her formative years, she developed an obsession for ’80s classic rock and went on to major in music during college.

So when Jennifer’s daughter, Lauren, failed the newborn hearing screening at the hospital about 19 months ago… and a second exam at the pediatrician’s office... and subsequent tests with the audiologist a week or two later… Jennifer and her husband, Todd, felt like a cruel twist of fate was robbing their child of the magnificence of sound.

“We were in denial,” said Jennifer, a Wheaton resident. “But deep down, we knew. I remember a door slamming at the pediatrician’s, and her brother would have absolutely reacted at that age. She didn’t.”

But soon, a medical advancement would serve as a beacon for the family.

Last winter, one of Lauren’s therapists encouraged Jennifer and Todd to attend a seminar on cochlear implants. The Whites attended the presentation, led by Dr. Robert Battista, an otologist with Adventist Hinsdale Hospital and the Ear Institute of Chicago.

“Outside the lecture, Todd and I saw two 7-year-olds doing cartwheels and talking to each other. Sure enough, we found out they were implanted,” Jennifer said. “It was amazing. We thought ‘Oh, there’s hope here.’”

Researching the technology and surgery, determining whether Lauren was eligible and making the decision of whether to go through with the invasive procedure was a complex process. But with Battista’s guidance, the Whites felt confident the opportunity was right for their daughter.

The family agreed to give Suburban Life unfettered access to Lauren’s surgery — Hinsdale Hospital’s first pediatric, simultaneous bilateral cochlear implant. Beginning in October, a team of reporters and photographers documented months of progress, family time and follow-up doctor’s appointments — including the day the devices were turned on.

HARD WORK

The Whites didn’t dwell too long on Lauren’s diagnosis. Instead, the family accepted the challenge of raising a deaf child and rolled up their sleeves.

At 3 months, Lauren was anesthetized for an automated auditory brainstem response test to assess her level of hearing loss. The Whites knew her outer ear was fine because her ear drum was moving. But medical professionals determined her inner ear wasn’t working properly.

Lauren was placed in the 90- to 100-decibel hearing level, which is considered severe-and-profound, said Tracy Meehan, a developmental therapist of hearing who has worked with the Whites for more than a year. The range of speech decibels is between 20 and 50, and Lauren wasn’t responding to any sound or tones at 75 to 80 decibels even with the use of hearing aids, she added.

But Lauren’s audiologist took ear molds to outfit her with the devices anyway.

“We just knew we needed to get sound in there no matter what it sounded like to get the brain used to hearing,” Jennifer said. “It was crucial — even if it was static, clicking, buzzing, humming, something muffled — anything.”

When Lauren was 4 months old, Meehan started making weekly home visits to work on preliminary linguistic exercises and to help the Whites learn how to communicate with their deaf daughter.

As the family adapted to new forms of communication, Jennifer and Todd watched as their animated and happy girl blossomed before their eyes. She grew into a beautiful, inquisitive child with a kind but sassy streak.

“Lauren’s got quite the personality,” Todd said. “She’s not a pistol, per se. She’s not cantankerous, but she is very strong-willed.

“We have lots of names for her: Swiss Miss, Lady Girl, Tyranosaurus — because when she walks, it’s like ‘boom, boom!’” he said.

With her dark blonde bob perpetually pinned with girly bows and an affinity for shiny jewelry and picture books, Lauren is just a regular toddler whose stubborn cochlea stopped developing a quarter-turn short.

THE DECISION

The possibility of cochlear implants was something Jennifer and Todd were aware of early on, and the couple followed any news on the subject. But, under the advisement of Lauren’s therapist, they waited a year to reassess Lauren’s progress before entertaining the idea of pursuing implants.

“Lauren would get more vocal when the hearing aids were turned on. Since we were getting that degree of response out of her, we hated the thought of putting her through surgery,” Jennifer said. “But we had talked with her therapist about keeping close tabs on her developmentally expressive behavior. Once we noticed it dipping, we started thinking about our options.”

Lauren was about 14 months when she became Battista’s patient. The doctor, part of the hospital’s Center for Hearing Restoration and Ear Research, has performed implants since 1992 and conducts an average of 25 or 30 procedures a year.

“Studies have shown that when you do the procedure at 18 months or younger, they can still catch up in terms of language acquisition and sound processing,” Jennifer said. “That’s how we arrived at the decision to do it when she turned 17 months.”

Battista assured them Lauren would benefit from new technological advances even after she had been implanted with the devices.

“We wouldn’t even need to tamper with the internal portion of the device to upgrade it,” Battista said. “You can replace solely the external part or use better software — as it becomes available — to hook it up to and tune it.”

Then it became a matter of whether Lauren would get one or two implants.

“The field is realizing more and more that people need two ears — especially to counteract background noise. Because even the slightest sound will be taxing,” Battista said. “Additionally, the language acquisition is faster with two functioning ears as opposed to one.”

SURGERY EXPECTATIONS

The procedure takes anywhere from 60 to 75 minutes per ear, and the team needs time between both sides to readjust, Battista said. The length of time depended on Lauren’s individual anatomy, but he estimated about three hours. And most of the time, unless unforeseen complications occur, the surgery is out-patient. So the Whites planned on getting Lauren home to sleep in her own bed.

There are internal and external components to the devices, but Battista would only deal with the internal ones in the operating room. The implantable pieces are akin to a thin, flat disc with a wire and electrodes on the end of the wire, which is inserted into about one and a half turns of the cochlea’s snail shell coil, he said. The flat part, which is about half the width of a credit card and a little thicker than one, is positioned under the skin behind the ear and screwed into the bone with titanium mesh.

The biggest risk to cochlear implant patients during the embed process is nerve damage, but someone on the surgical team constantly monitors an instrument that alerts doctors to any red flags in the functioning of the nervous system.

Then a four-week recovery period had to pass before the Whites scheduled an appointment with the audiologist.

“Basically, we want the skin swelling to go down before we attach the external components, activate them and tinker with the electrodes to program them to comfortable frequencies and ranges during the post-op hearing therapy,” Battista said. “The whole process is truly remarkable, if you think about it. We can restore someone’s sense almost to a normal level. There’s no other field that can do it.”

The realization that perhaps Lauren’s diagnosis came with a bright side hit the Whites in a similar fashion. While the opportunities for their daughter’s growth excited them, Jennifer simply hoped to witness Lauren turning her head at the sound of her own mother’s voice.

“That, to me, will be huge,” she said. “Right now, she doesn’t even flinch if a train goes right by her.”

The Whites also were curious to see how Lauren reacts to Elmo, who she’s obsessed with despite never having been exposed to his distinctive voice.

“It’ll just be discovery after discovery,” Jennifer said.

Video: The White family prepares

Slideshow: Meet the family

Pro: One advocate's view on cochlear implants

Con: One opponent's view on cochlear implants

Q&A: Implant manufacturer excited about hearing potential for young recipient