There's at least one head tattoo out there that shouldn't be too hard for most people to support. In an effort to lend his young daughter Charlotte a bit of his own courage, a New Zealand dad tattooed a cochlear implant on the side of his head to help the little girl feel better about her real-life hearing device.
Alistar Campbell got the tattoo out of love, he told the New Zealand Herald. He also wanted to show his daughter that he could take some pain to help her feel better about herself.
"[It's for] my love for her really," Campbell told the New Zealand Herald. "Hey, my hair can grow back."
Campbell said he plans to let his hair grow back, but he'll shave his head for special occasions.
When Charlotte saw her dad's new tattoo, she said she thought it was "cool." Her mother, however, thinks the girl will fully understand the significance of the tattoo later on.
Charlotte was due for her second cochlear implant to the right side of her head when her father decided to get the head tattoo. The six-year-old, who has profound hearing loss, got her first cochlear implant when she was four years old.
Cochlear implants are surgically applied hearing aids that employ microphones, transmitters, and voice processors to capture and relay sound. The implants use receivers and stimulators, anchored to bone, to pass along electrical impulses.
For little Charlotte, the second cochlear implant should help her pinpoint the origin of sounds, according to Mary Jane Boland, fundraising and communications manager for The Hearing House.
"But the key thing is Charlotte does all the things hearing kids can do," Boland said. "She lives a really ordinary life."
Posted by Anita-Alistair Campbell on Tuesday, August 4, 2015
