As I mentioned in the last post, I grew up with a sister who has hearing loss. When her hearing loss was identified when she was five years old, the doctors told my parents there was nothing they could do. Since I have started working in the specific field of my job, I have started to question if that is the case these days. Last week, I escorted her to visit an audiologist where her unilateral conductive hearing loss was confirmed once again.
The triangles and circles indicate that she has a significant hearing loss in her right ear. The "c" looking brackets in the middle indicate what she can hear if the sound passes the middle ear, which displays a mild hearing loss. The audiologist referred my sister to see an ENT about possibly surgically correcting the breakdown. She has an appointment with the doctor next week and I'm curious to see what he recommends. I hope that it can help her communicate in noisy situations and make it less of a struggle for her on a daily basis.
Also as I mentioned before, my husband also has a significant hearing loss; he has profound sensorineural hearing loss bilaterally.
The o's and x's show what he hears without hearing aids and the A's show what he can hear with his hearing aids. His primary mode of communication is sign language and he has hearing aids for both ears which he has been wearing for the past four years. When he first got them, he could not differentiate any sounds, but over time, he is now able to identify some environmental sounds consistently.
He visited his audiologist over the summer about getting newer, more powerful hearing aids. After looking at his current aids, she told him there was nothing on the market that would make a significant difference to what he has except for a cochlear implant. My jaw about hit the floor when he went on with her with all kinds of questions. Is this something he really was considering? He sent his aided and unaided audiogram to Johns Hopkins to see if he is even a candidate and sure enough, he is! He started going to pre-surgery appointments to get ready to make this big step including appointments with an audiologist from JH, the surgeon, his primary care physician, and technical things including a CT scan of his cochleas and a chest x-ray. He also met with his audiologist about purchasing a new hearing aid for the ear that is not receiving the implant. Now we are coming up on the surgery day...on Monday! I can't believe how fast it has snuck up on us! I still don't know how to feel about it, but either way I support his decision. I will be there with him every step of the way and I'm excited to see what it will do for him and his communication with non-signers.
This whole process has given me a totally new perspective for what the parents of my students go through. I have gone to all of these appointments as a support figure, not making a single decision. How must these parents feel when they are making these decisions for their young kids who cannot communicate how they are feeling or even understand what is going on?
And, as for my sister, she has gone her entire life struggling to hear because she was told years ago there was nothing they could do to help. Now, come to find out, there may be a chance to surgically correct the problem and make it easier for her to communicate...now....after all these years of it being a challenge. What if I had never learned there may be something that can be done to help her? Would she have gone on for the rest of her life struggling?
What I do in my career is more to me than just the money I make....I take it personally.
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