Dad Receives a Tattoo to Match His Daughter’s Cochlear Implant

Charlotte received a cochlear implant, and her dad, Alistair, got a matching tattoo. This photo went viral on Facebook within 24 hours. See the related story at LipreadingMom.com.

Alistair and Anita Campbell wanted to do something to help their young daughter, Charlotte, adjust to having two cochlear implants. So Alistair received a matching cochlear implant tattoo placed above and behind his left ear.

“Charlotte was diagnosed with a hearing loss at the age of 15 months and fitted with hearing aids,” writes Anita and Alistair in an exclusive interview with LipreadingMom.com. “After not developing speech by age three, we were referred … for cochlear implant assessment.”

This was when the Campbells learned Charlotte had auditory neuropathy, a hearing disorder in which sound enters the inner ear normally but the transmission of signals from the inner ear to the brain is impaired.

Charlotte was implanted in her left ear at age four. “She thrived straight away,” writes her parents, “coming out of her shell and blossoming into a social butterfly.”

Charlotte was implanted in her right ear the first week of August. That prompted Alistair to get his matching tattoo. They wanted to “celebrate Charlotte’s journey and to show her how special her ears are,” says the Campbells. “Charlotte and her brothers loved the tattoo. We could never have imaged how much attention this would draw.”

Since posting the photo on social media, the Campbells, who live in New Zealand, found almost instant celebrity. On August 4, the photo went viral and went on to achieve more than 80,000 views and 15,000 shares on the Facebook page Life of Dad.

According to Hear 4 Kidz Trust, Charlotte had a third surgery, receiving the new cochlear implant on her right ear and a replacement of her first implant on the left ear.

The family shared these photos with LipreadingMom.com. See the Campbells’ photos, along with hundreds of other cochlear implant and hearing aid photos, on the Show Me Your Ears page.