We did WHAT?!?
I'll try to abbreviate the process. Roughly 6 months after the adoption, we realized that Zane's hearing was, indeed, faulty. Now you're probably thinking to yourself that ever-popular teen swag, "DUH!" Oh wait...maybe teenagers don't say that anymore...I'm so old, I wouldn't even know! Ah well...back to, "No joke, Sherlock!" I like it.
Honestly, though, it wasn't obvious that Zane had no hearing in the "nub" ear. He could hear a pin drop, is the lightest sleeper that's ever pretended to sleep through a slight breeze, and never EVER misses anything. We were convinced that he could somehow hear through all that scar tissue and obstructions...
...until that infamous game of hide and seek. Suddenly it was all crystal clear. No matter where you were hiding, you could yell, "I'm upstairs!" (or wherever you weren't), and Big Z would run to that place. At one point, Bryce was hiding behind the recliner, and Zane was standing BESIDE it! Bryce would whistle, and Zane would go running in every random direction, insisting that he was heading towards Bryce. At first it was hilarious, but soon, we knew we had a problem...other than the obvious missing EAR! :) He basically has no surround sound...no clue about sound location. We also wondered if this was a major factor in his speech issues...immediate family and close friends are the only people who can consistently understand his ramblings. (More details on that in the next post.)
We eventually began having some testing done with the local AEA...more new territory for this momma. They determined that his good ear had close to perfect hearing, but that no readings were notable on the right side. Thankfully, they discovered that he had next-to-perfect hearing on that side in the bone conduction tests. This means that he will eventually have the possibility of getting a permanent hearing aid implant, if we choose to pursue that. They said he's too young now and without the reconstructed ear, they'd have nowhere to place it. Of course, with such good hearing in the left ear, it would be a significant decision whether we'd want to do the implant anyway. It's kind of a big deal. Regardless, the ironic part is that since his hearing is so good on the one side, he doesn't qualify for any assistance in school. Awesome.
At the time of all these tests, we began to talk to the docs back up in Iowa City about hearing aids. As I mentioned last time, the poor kiddo already has glasses strapped to his head so we just weren't sure about the soft band hearing aid being the way to go. Once again, the U gets an A+ for quality service...and yes, we will hit almost every specialist on campus before this is over...but the hearing aid clinic staff is awesome. They indicated that the Baha may or may not help Z in his broken "sound system," but it was worth a try...a **GULP** $4k try.
It was nothing short of comical the day I took Zane in to try out the Baha. Once the doc got the hearing aid ready to go, she strapped it on his head and turned it on. She asked if he could hear her from that ear...you should've seen the look on his face when he heard himself answer! It was hilarious. Then he started saying, "HELLO!" in every voice and accent you could imagine. He started saying everyone's names and acting all slap-happy. Think of the Seinfeld episode when Jerry and crew kept talking funny the entire time...probably hard to isolate...but if you could, you would've been in that moment inside the clinic that day. It was crazy...even for Zane. Take a moment, friends. It's hard to process...but hilarious.
After much anticipation, Zane began wearing these sci fi contraptions...like I said, the glasses band runs east to west...the hearing aid runs north to south. The mental picture your mind is just tossing around is only the tip of the iceberg! If he ever gets braces, the poor kid is gonna need a bodyguard. Of course, he's still just as cute as can be! As you can imagine, the hearing aid (and glasses) have been thrown, stepped on, abandoned, and hidden...and I'm sure we're still in the honeymoon phase!
Adding insult to injury for Zane, the device also came with clip-on mic that we gave to Mrs. Franklin, his teacher at school. Going from zero hearing in that ear to amplified hearing isn't his favorite, but we are adjusting as needed. I may or may not find some morbid satisfaction in that. :/
Wanna know the hubs' favorite?!? The pre-certified purchase of said appliance is now being questioned by the insurance company. Shocker.
OK friends...we're close to being caught up with Zane's health issues. I'm happy to move on and share with you all the things that have been going on this past summer...after one more update on his health...stay tuned!
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