Elizabeth's Big Day

Yesterday was a very big day for Elizabeth - she received her hearing aids.  Up until I hit "publish" on this blog post, only a handful of people know that Elizabeth has a significant hearing loss.

The day after Elizabeth was born, the hospital performed a standard hearing test.  One of Elizabeth's ears did not pass.  The technician assured us that it was no big deal, because newborns frequently don't pass since there is often fluid from the birthing process in the ears.  The next day, the test was repeated.  Again, one ear did not pass, and, again, we were assured that we should not give it a second thought.  A similar test was performed a few weeks later with the same results.  At this point, we were referred to New York Eye and Ear for more definitive testing.

On March 29th, New York Eye and Ear performed a complete test on the ear that did not pass.  They confirmed that she has significant hearing loss in that ear.  Two weeks later, tests showed that both ears have similar hearing loss.  The last five weeks have been a flurry of additional tests and visits with doctors, specialists, etc., etc.

At this point, the doctors do not know what is causing the hearing loss.  Our specialists think that it is more likely than not that when Elizabeth is older some, but not all, of her hearing loss can be corrected through surgery.  Or course, since the doctors don't know what is causing the hearing loss, this is very difficult to predict with any degree of accuracy

How much can Elizabeth hear without hearing aids?  We really don't have any idea.  We know that she hears some things.  If a door is slammed, she'll jump.  Does she hear us talking?  She probably hears some of it.  One specialist explained that he suspects that when listening to speech, Elizabeth can generally hear consonant but struggles with vowels.  From meeting with different doctors and studying all the hearing results, it would seem that is an optimistic estimation. 

Yesterday afternoon, I left work early so that the whole family could go to New York Eye and Ear for Elizabeth's big day.  Clearly Elizabeth had no idea that it was her big day.  Katie just thought Elizabeth was going to the ear doctor - which she thinks is a great treat because she can ride in a taxi and play with toys.  In the picture above, Elizabeth and I are waiting for the audiologist to see us.

Elizabeth now gets to wear two cute little hearing aids (and an ugly orange strap to keep them from getting lost when they fall out).   After getting the hearing aids, we stopped for a fruit smoothie, and I took this picture of Mommy with Elizabeth.  As you can see, the hearing aids aren't all that obvious - however, the orange strap really stands out.

With the hearing aids, she should be able to hear the world around her just fine.  Soon, we expect to begin speech therapy so that Elizabeth's development will be as normal as possible.

Thus far, we have one big problem with the hearing aids - keeping these little hearing aids in Elizabeth's ears.  Every time she turns her head, at least one seems to fall out.  I have no idea how we care possibly going to keep things in.  Tomorrow, we're going to try tape.  I'm serious.