Helping Emerald Get A New Ear

Kia Ora Everyone. My daughter Emerald Tuhiwai-Polson who is 6 yrs old was diagnosed with having Profound Bilateral hearing loss in May 2011. This basically means she has the most severe degree of hearing loss before complete loss in both ears. In Augusr 2011 she was implanted on the left ear which was the worst of the two ( Nz Govt at that time only funded one ear). From that point onwards Emeralds life changed completely. It was absolutely amazing. With the help of family, habilitation staff and teaching staff Emerald has come leaps and bounds with her language and learning. That was up until a couple of months ago.... Emeralds learning, behavior and hearing has been on a downward spiral. After a lot of observations and testing and specialist appointments its been discovered that Emerald has a soft failure with her Cochlear Implant. This means she will need surgery again to re implant a new one (as this is not repairable). It was a big blow but there is a bright side to this. As we do not qualify under the new laws for a second implant (only missing the cut off age by 4 months) we have to fund the second Cochlear implant ourselves. So because the funded ear is being replaced we are able to implant the right ear at a considerable lower price of $35,000 at the same time ( versus around $58,000 for surgery not combined ). I am a single mum of two children who works partime and have no way of coming up with the money necessary for the surgery. She is an amazing little girl who leaves a lasting impression on eveyone who meets her. A second implant will improve her quality of life most considerably. I know its such a huge amount to raise in a really short time frame. But nothing is impossible. Emerald proves that theory eveyday. Thank you so much for taking the time to consider our cause. God bless from Emerald and Whanau.