Posts Tagged ‘hearing’
The month of May never fails to be packed full of various end-of-school-year activities. This week we were treated to Austin’s language arts program. The program featured songs that demonstrated all of the wonderful things the kids learned this year. These second graders know vocabulary words most adults don’t know. The kids sang the words to Dr. King’s I Have A Dream speech, to Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken, and chanted multiple poems by Shel Silverstein. It was a wonderful program…everything written by the amazing Mrs. Jones…Austin’s very talented teacher. Austin has grown so much this school year and we can’t thank Mrs. Jones enough for her hard work on behalf of Austin and many other second grade students.
Austin Mills-8 years old, second grade
Austin has grown so much this year...not only cognitively, but physically as well. He is up to my chin and the clothes he is wearing in this picture are size 12!
Today was Olivia’s kindergarten graduation. It was charming to watch all of the kids sing their little hearts out. Olivia is so sophisticated and mature these days. Olivia was awarded the Caramello award for being sweet , kind, never complaining, and mello! The award came complete with a Carmello candy bar. Her teacher Mrs. Lund is fantastic! Olivia has learned to read this year and she is so excited about this. She is a little unsure about having to go to school full day next year when she becomes a first grader. It’s such a hard adjustment, but I know she’s ready to be a big kid!
A side note on Olivia…after a very lengthy trial period for her hearing aids, Olivia has decided not to continue wearing them. I kind of sensed that something happened at school to trigger her decision. One morning, I fixed Olivia’s hair into two pony tails and she freaked out because she was worried that someone would see her hearing aids. I quickly changed her hairstyle and she went to school with her hearing aids on. The next day, she refused to wear them. She went from very excited about wearing them to not wanting to wear them at all. With the hearing aids on, Olivia tested in the normal hearing range for both ears.
Now, we are going to have to work very closely with her first grade teacher to make some necessary modifications so that Olivia isn’t missing anything. We are fortunate that Eastwood is equipped with the Front Row speaker system, which is a fantastic thing. The teacher wears a microphone necklace around his/her neck and their voice is amplified around the entire room. Olivia would most likely have problems hearing subtle differenced in words like if a spelling word was pot, she might hear pop. The audiologist with the district has been wonderful and very supportive, so we hope to work through things together. Maybe in the future when Olivia is presented with more challenging listening situations, she may want to try hearing aids again. We’ll just have to wait and see!
Olivia on graduation day! OK, the girl has the most amazing eyes and lashes ever!
Such a sweet girl...
Tuesday was a big day for Olivia. She had waited over two weeks for her hearing aids to come in, and Tuesday evening we went in to get them fitted and to be trained on their care. The minute the audiologist put the hearing aids on Olivia, I could tell Olivia was a bit unsure. I think it must have been a bit overwhelming to hear at full capacity for the first time. Maybe it was like having cotton removed from your ears and experiencing the world as never before. Olivia couldn’t really put into words the differences she was experiencing. She did say that she noticed the sound of cars passing us by while driving home. We live by a really busy street and when we were walking up to our front door, she commented on how loud the traffic was on the street.
The day before we got Olivia’s hearing aids, I went into her kindergarten class to have a little sharing session on hearing and hearing aids. I bought four non fiction children’s books on the subject, none of which were very great, but I read them a story…A Birthday for Ben. This story is about a boy who is hearing impaired and hated birthday parties because he felt left out of the games, especially the games that had music. Ben was about to turn seven and he didn’t want a party. His parents and friends surprised him with a party and his sweet mom modified all of the games so that all of the kids could participate fully. Ben had a hearing aid just like Olivia’s.
We talked about the friends in Olivia’s class who wore glasses and how glasses help us to see. We talked about hearing aids and how they are similar to glasses. I shared that Olivia would be soon wearing hearing aids. The kids got to guess what colors Olivia chose. They could’ve talked hours about styles and colors. It was a great sharing session and really prepped the kids on what to expect Olivia to be wearing to school from now on.
Olivia wore her hearing aids to school on Wednesday. It was parents and pastries morning, (in honor of Dr. Seuss) so they gym was filled with over 100 people reading books and having doughnuts. Joe said that Olivia looked overwhelmed and highly distracted. It was probably like having ADD or something…the radio must have been tuned to about 100 different channels…all coming in at the same level of sound. You could probably guess that the next day, Olivia didn’t want to wear her hearing aids. We worked out an incentive plan. I want her to give them a good month worth of wearing before she decides she does or doesn’t like having them. Olivia wore them reluctantly on Thurusday and said they didn’t bother her as much and today, she said she forgot about them after rug time. I think she’s starting to get used to them…
We’ll just have to see how it goes. Olivia is working on earning a Barbie Jeep. If anyone wants to sell me one, let me know, because I think she’ll earn it!
Olivia sporting her new hearing aids...complete with decorative stickers.
Olivia picked out the color scheme herself. They really are quite the fashion statement.
Friday was Olivia’s appointment with an ENT. There are a few things we now know for sure:
1. Olivia has hearing deficiencies in not only her right ear, but her left ear as well. Her left ear is the better of the two and the right ear takes a big dive right around 2000 HZ, which the doctor says is about what frequency a woman’s voice is. He did say that with the level of deficiency that Olivia has, she would probably have difficulty hearing me if I were talking to her with my back turned.
2. The doctor does believe that this loss was present at birth and was picked up by the newborn hearing screening test. With Olivia passing the ABR at about three weeks of age, we thought we were “out of the woods.”
3. Olivia’s outer ear looks great! There appears to be no problem with her outer ear. Olivia did have a CT scan up at Primary Children’s to determine if there are any problems with the inner ear. The fear is that her hearing loss could be progressive, causing her hearing to worsen over time.
4. The chances of Olivia having a hearing aid are high. This doctor said they like to have kids try it out with this level of loss and go from there.
We will go back to the ENT doctor soon to see what he thinks about the scan and go from there. I’ll keep you all posted!
Olivia getting ready for her scan.
Such a brave little girl!
So, why does this seem so much harder for me to accept? If she were getting glasses, I know it wouldn’t be such a big deal. I showed Olivia what hearing aids looked like on the internet and explained to her what they were. She is not too excited about trying them out, but I think she will. They do come in all sorts of fun colors. We’ll just have to wait and see what we are to do next. For now, she is sitting closer to the teacher with her left ear, her good ear, closest to her as well. For now, I am trying to stay positive and keep my preconceived notions about hearing aids out of the picture. They’re not just for old men and “special” kids right? For those who know me, I’m totally joking! I love old people and grew up with a very “special” brother…and as a matter of fact, my mom has hearing aids and I promise, I’ve never made fun of her. Deep breaths for this mama…
On another note…week one of marathon training is over! I’m still alive! I’ll keep you posted on my running and its connection to CF fundraising. I need to get some kinks worked out and then I’ll let you know how you can get involved.
I have been super busy lately with my first semester coming to a close tomorrow. Yay, one down, five more to go! It will just fly by…I know it. So, it has been brought to my attention…twice that Julia has very white fingernail beds. It perplexed her pulmonologist at her last clinic visit and I just kinda brushed it aside. It was then brought up by my sister who always paints my girls’ nails. So, I need to get into Julia’s primary care physician to have him take a gander at Julia’s white fingernail beds. I really can’t think much past getting through tomorrow, so I’ll be dealing with fingernails after I bring this semester to a close, thank you very much!
Julia's little hands along with her white fingernail beds. What do you think?
Anyway…I need to switch gears and talk a little bit about my Olivia. Olivia came home from school a couple of weeks ago with a note saying we needed to look into her hearing. Back up a bit with me. When Olivia was born, she failed the newborn hearing test multiple times. After several attempts, she went in for another kind of test…the ABR. Olivia had to be asleep for the test and it took about an hour. She passed the ABR, so we have since just brushed that aside. Well, it is now coming back as a potential problem to add to our plate of challenges.
So last week, I took Olivia in to have a more extensive hearing test. The test took about an hour and the results of this test indicate that Olivia has a moderate hearing loss in her right ear. We are waiting to get in to see a ENT doctor to look into this a bit further and see where it takes us and specifically Olivia. The audiologist said that many professionals in her field would aid a person with a similar hearing loss as Olivia. She also said that many children have really liked the benefits of a hearing aid with similar level of hearing loss. So, to aid or not to aid…that is the question we have before us. For now, we are taking it slow and looking at things from every angle before making a decision.
My feelings…
I am very disheartened about this. As a parent, I just want my kids to be physically perfect. Not in the supermodel since of perfect. I want every part of their little bodies to work properly. I don’t want my kid’s hearing to be inadequate. I don’t want my kid’s lungs to breathe at less than full capacity. Ah, sigh…
It makes me very sad indeed. One foot in front of the other…always moving forward.
I look forward to wrapping up my first semester of grad school tomorrow. I will savor the time off and just enjoy my kids and family while I have more time to do so.