Saturday, July 21, 2012
Mixed emotions.
Yesterday, we were given the news that Anna Gray is deaf in her left ear.
It was unexpected, and we obviously don't want any of our children's lives to be harder than they have to be, but this is a relatively minor obstacle to overcome. After all the good news we have been given: a perfectly healthy heart, strong, strait eyes, properly-functioning thyroid, kidneys, and bladder... we are grateful that it's "only" hearing loss.
Since her other ear "hears beautifully", the audiologists don't believe it will have a huge impact on her speech and language development, although they are slightly concerned with where she is now. We are not, given that she spent the first 12 months in an orphanage that spoke a different language. They would like to do an ABR (auditory brain response) to confirm in order to proceed with a plan. We asked that they wait a few months since she was recently sedated and to give her more time to develop those speech and language skills.We will re-test in October, do the ABR, and go from there.
It may mean we sign longer, it may mean we sign forever, it may mean a hearing aide- we don't really know yet.
That's okay.
I started signing at a really young age and was fascinated with it growing up (I still sign at church). As a freshman at UT, I made ASL my major. When I transferred, I changed to Special Education- specifically, working with children on the autism spectrum. Ten years later, I have a child on the autism spectrum and now a child with hearing loss. The Lord is pretty funny sometimes, huh?
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3 comments:
I met the most AMAZING deaf woman with DS this weekend. I got her contact info for you and her mom's and her sister's and her niece's. I'm out now but will post it when I get back.
I've been following your blog since Anna Gray's adoption, but I've never commented before. My daughter has moderate to severe hearing loss in her left ear. She got her hearing aid at 14 months and now at 3.5 has had no issues in speech or language. Her biggest struggle is localizing sounds. (She is terrible at hide and seek!) We are working on that now, but it can be a safety concern (crossing the street) or a problem in school (if a fan or something loud is near her good ear, she will have problems hearing the teacher).
I would urge you to get the ABR done ASAP. The earlier you can get her adjusted to a hearing aid (if that is what is best for her), the better. The sedation for the ABR is very light. My daughter was given a liquid to drink and "napped" for maybe 2 hours. Unfortunately, once hearing loss is diagnosed, the tests don't stop there. We had to have a CT scan, bloodwork, EKG, eye doctor visit and genetisist visit (maybe you've already done some of those though).
I wish you good luck in your journey! Hopefully the hearing loss will be just another obstacle you will be able to overcome. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Thank you, Erin! That was really helpful. We weren't told much beyond the ABR, so it's nice to get a better picture of what's to come. I may get in touch with you later!
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