Alejandro is now 11 years old and is a
pioneer student like the rest of
the Carlos Rodriguez Careaga primary school in Artemisa. But
his first
five years of life were very difficult.
According to his mother Maribel Suarez, Alejandro was born
with a genetic
problem and the response to a world of sounds depended on a
devise
produced in the United States with a value of 16 000
dollars: a cochlear
implant.
Cuba, which did not have the possibility of purchasing the
device in the
United States due to the economic blockade, had to pay an
extra 5 000
dollar per unit, even without the opportunity of buying the
necessary
accessories and spare parts, to supply them countrywide.
That is how, May 31st, 2005, became an unforgettable date
for this child
and his humble family from Artemisa when he underwent
surgery.
There are over 200 Cuban children who have been benefited by
the Cochlear
Implant, many of them deaf and blind, challenging each
morning more than
silence; the blockade.
This devise returned the hearing sensation and performance
from sounds in
the environment perceived through a microphone; the
processor filters,
analysis and digitalizes them in just seconds into codified
electric
signals reaching the earpiece integrated by means of a
cable.
Through the skin, signals are received by the implanted
receptor by
modulated radio frequencies, the receptor-stimulator
electrically which
induces the electrodes that were placed on the devise and
transmit the
sounds to the brain through the ear nerve.
Cuba´s political will in face of the US blockade to purchase
such
apparatus buried Alejandro´s silence of the world. This type
of surgery
in the world costs some 50 thousand dollars and close to 20
thousand in
rehabilitation. Alejandro received all this free of charge.
Alejandro is now in the state of comprehending sounds, and
according to
his speech therapist Lucrecia Cabrera; Alejandro won a math
and dancing
competition, loves computers, baseball and knows that he is
living in a
country where children are the most precious treasures.
