Aaron and Karen Thompson were over the moon with excitement when they welcomed their third child, a darling baby boy they named Marshall. On their first day in the hospital, however, they received some alarming news – Marshall had failed his hearing test.
“I’m an engineer, so I immediately went into problem-solving mode to determine what was the best thing we could do to help our son,” said Aaron. “I got online and talked to people in our area, and I quickly learned that Boys Town is tops and one of the premier facilities for children with hearing issues.”
Since the Thompsons live in rural Nebraska, the Boys Town National Research Hospital was nearly 300 miles away, but when Marshall was just one month old, they packed up the family and headed to Omaha. “From our first visit, Boys Town felt right,” said Karen. “We learned that there are solutions out there for children with severe and profound deafness and I think for me, that was the biggest comfort,” added Aaron.
At this appointment, the Thompsons learned that the best initial path for Marshall was hearing aids and before his first birthday he received bilateral cochlear implants. “To see Marshall first recognize a sound and turn his head was amazing,” said Karen. “It is truly a technology that creates miracles.” On their visits to Omaha, Marshall was often seen by an entire team of Boys Town specialists in speech pathology, cochlear implants, ENT, ophthalmology, and pediatrics.
Once the Thompsons settled into a new routine at home, they had bi-weekly Zoom sessions with a Boys Town speech pathologist based in Omaha, eliminating the need for them to travel. Marshall started to use words. “That is the reason why we went to Boys Town,” said Aaron. “We want him to develop speech. One of his first words was ‘please.’”
“For us, Boys Town has been phenomenal,” said Karen. “They have been everything we needed for Marshall, and we couldn’t have done it without that team.”
