Hearing Aids

We learned in depth last month that Cayman has a pretty messed up middle and inner ear. The bones in the middle ear are malformed and do not transmit sound well into the inner ear. And once sound does make it through the middle ear, the inner ear is even more malformed, with a part missing that effects both hearing and balance. The sound then travels up the nerve and into the brain. That pathway seems to be in good working order. But once the sound has reached the brain it has to be interpreted still by a brain that is severely malformed itself (and remember the sound that did make it all that way is pretty poor).

I sat there marveling over the doctor's analysis of Cayman's ear anatomy. It was felt shocking to hear. Cayman has carried on showing she understand much of what we say which masked that there ever was a problem with her hearing. The only thing that maybe gave us the slight wondering is her lack of speech development. She does not talk. We don't even hear many "mom's" or "dada's" anymore but the part of her brain that controls speech is not exactly typical either.

Listening to the doctor's overwhelming interpretation of the detailed scan of Cayman's ears and all the malformations it revealed, my head swirled in the terminology. We were getting a quick, crash coarse in ear anatomy it would seem.

I sat there engulfed in a great peace. We are in the midst of another one of God's amazing miracles in our little Cayman. It's remarkable that she can hear at all and the amount of hearing loss that is noted is marked only as mild to moderate. Can you see the miracle in that too?

Cayman was fitted for hearing aids, not a process that she enjoyed. In fact she cried. Poor baby. She just hates her ears being messed with and any progress we had made with the toy otoscope I am afraid was thrown out the window that day. The audiologist injected a putty-like substance into her ears that hardened to the shape of them after a few minutes. They took the mold out and that was used to custom make some well fitting hearing aid molds for Cayman.

And here's the big news: Cayman loves the hearing aids!

A toy otoscope, we don't need that to get her over her ear-touching phobias anymore. It only took her a couple of days to feel comfortable with them and now she sits patiently and calmly while I put them in each morning. She finishes it up with smiles and clapping. She never pulls them out. They have even improved her tolerance in wearing her glasses. Cayman learned quickly that when she pulls her glasses off out pops the hearing aids too. So she leaves those in place now as well. Can you imagine how much easier this has made things for us? No more struggles and fights. Except in eye patching...that's been thrown in the mix of doctor's orders now too, but we'll save that for another day's post.

We have noticed Cayman reacting to quieter sounds since she has gotten the hearing aids. And clinically the tests showed improvement in her range of hearing.

So many glorious things we are experiencing in our little miracle girl.

Peering out the window.

Pointing at a squirrel.

We're still keeping our fingers crossed and praying our insurance will pay for the hearing aids. We have appealed their denial and now we wait to hear from them again. I am told from a lot of different parties to not hold my breath though. Rarely does an insurance company pay for them.


*Sigh*