HUDSON, Ohio — It's the little things that make us grateful: A smile here or there, and your life is made.
Savoring those moments is something MaKaela and Tony Lapso lean into every day, because when their youngest son, Corbin, was just 5 days old, a hearing test took a surprising turn.
"I think we both were kind of reading the technician's face," MaKaela recalled, "and one hour passed, and two hours in it, you could just tell on her face it wasn't going the way we were hoping."
An audiologist at Cleveland Clinic confirmed what they already knew.
"She said, 'You know, it's likely that his hearing loss is severe to profound,'" MaKaela said. "'It's likely permanent, lifelong, and can only be reversed or treated through technology.'"
Tony wondered about Corbin's future, thoughts racing through his head.
"I remember walking back to the car and just looking at each other and both breaking down," he remembered of that moment.
It was the merging of gratitude for their brand new beautiful little boy, and grief for the life they thought he'd have.
"At that point in time, his brother Bennett was, you know, 22 months old, and he would look up in the sky and say, 'Airplane!'" Tony said. "I remember asking the doctor, like, you know, 'In two years, when Corbin's 2, is he going to be able to hear that airplane and have those conversations with us? Will he sing in the car with us?' Things like that."
"The audiologist kind of went over some of our options, and she did throw out a cochlear implant," MaKaela added. "I was adamantly against them. I just was like, 'Well, I don't want him to have this permanent thing on his head that's so blatantly obvious that he's deaf,' and that he would have to undergo surgery. And that was the ignorance speaking. I just didn't know anything about it."
A plan was set: Corbin would first be fitted with hearing aids when he was just weeks old.
"He clearly showed that he would respond to sound with the hearing aids, which was a beautiful thing," MaKaela said, "but it was likely that ... he was hearing it muffled."
Then, at 8 months old, a life-changing decision for cochlear implant surgery was made Corbin would have the surgery at Cleveland Clinic to receive an electronic hearing device placed in the cochlea of the inner ear.
"Six hours have never felt so long," MaKaela said. "All we could do is pray, and the thing that we were blessed with is we totally supported and trusted our team of doctors."
"The day that they got turned on was just, you know, like, in some ways it was the finish line," Tony stated, "and other ways it was the starting point."
It was the start of Corbin's new hearing journey, where he started enjoying all kinds of sounds. Today, at age 2, Corbin is always busy playing with his older brother Bennett, and reading and singing, too.
"To see him where he is today, it's incredible," Tony said. "And like MaKaela said, it's a testament to everything the doctors have done for him."
Still, even with Corbin's astounding progress, the Lapsos know their choice was a very personal one.
"We chose to get him cochlear implants, which some would argue that shouldn't have been our choice to give him access to sound ," MaKaela admitted. "He could have done beautiful things with sign language, which is true. Our hope is that he will lead whatever life he wants to lead and hopefully continue to make an impact on others."
MaKaela's been sharing their journey with other parents on her blog, Corbin the Conqueror. She also started a Facebook support group with one of Corbin's doctors.
"It's great to have the support as adults," MaKaela explained, "but I think it's just going to be such an amazing thing when they see people that are like them."
The Lapsos know the sky is the limit for Corbin; he can be anything he wants. For now, it's the little things.
"It's so much more beautiful," MaKaela says. "Our perspectives on so many things have changed because of that little boy."
Editor's Note: The following video is from a previous, unrelated report.
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