Friday, April 13, 2018

Earlier this week we had an appointment with a doctor in Boise who does ear revision surgery.  It was a unique appointment as we met via FaceTime instead of in the office face to face.  Dr. Griffiths gave us many things to think about and we plan to meet him in person in the coming months.  We are still exploring some other options so we're not quite ready to jump on that bandwagon just yet.  We don't know what the future holds and we are being very cautious with our decisions.

This morning we had an appointment with the audiologist to have her Baha reprogrammed and to have her fitted with a new band.  She's always been a champ about wearing her Baha (when she was little she called it her Haba) but now that she's had a little break & she is getting older and more aware, she's having a harder time with it this time around but she's being a good sport about it.  Hopefully it will help enough that she'll learn to love it again.

The band is a new style and fits on the back of the head instead of the regular headband, we're hoping she'll like that better, especially since there is no velcro to pull her hair.

She needs to wear the Baha because a) it helps her to hear and b) it stimulates the nerve so that if and when they do open the canal (again!) it will function.  There is a noticeable difference in her hearing when she wears it and when she doesn't.  She has a hard time localizing sound and filtering sound with background noise without it.  We are proud of her for taking things in stride and just rolling with the punches.

For the most part she is confident and so great about all of this but there are also moments that she is very tender and her emotions are close to the surface.  This week has been a hard week for her.  It breaks our hearts to watch the tears fall from her eyes.  The good news is that she is getting old enough & understands enough that she is very much part of the decision making.  We've always included her in our decisions about her ear but she is now very aware of the things we are discussing and able to have a more educated opinion.  This process has been very hard on her but we are very proud of who she is because of it!