Mommy & Zeke can hear one another!

The hearing aids are in!  After a long 4 hour appointment this morning, Jesi brought Zeke home with his first pair of hearing aids.  The difference is very noticeable when he is wearing them – he blinks and starts at much much softer sounds.  He seems to enjoy hearing quite a bit, although it was a little overwhelming for him at first.  For the next week or so, he’ll only be wearing them for a few hours at a time while he’s awake so that his ear can get used to having them and not get irritated.  They’re super cute and he doesn’t seem to mind them at all; his favorite bouncy seat is much more engaging for him now that he can hear the music; and he’s responding much more to Mommy’s voice.

Thus begins a life of assisted hearing; we’re just grateful that they’re available and that we can already see such a difference in how he interacts with us.

Zeke Smiling

Latest update….

OKAY!  I apologize for the lengthily delay between updates…  things have been crazy and we feel like we’ve been hanging on for dear life.  It seems like there have been no areas of our life that hasn’t been touched in the last month, from sickness with the kids (still working Jed through a 104 degree fever even as I write) to a job saga that ended in a new assignment that has me putting in 11-12 hour days to the ongoing doctors appointments and a special project that I’ve been working on in the evenings for a few weeks now (more on that later).

Other than the general insanity, things are going fairly well.  Zeke is progressing normally so far, including a few milestones that are very encouraging.  He’s started to respond to us visually and even to smile at us when we play with him.  Needless to say, that’s terrific since we know that he has visual cognition and is processing the things he’s seeing.  We weren’t sure he’d do either one of those, so obviously it’s fantastically exciting to have him interacting with us.  He’s also rolling over from his tummy to his back, another milestone that he’s actually been early for.  He’s also beginning to establish some rhythms, including sleeping for around 5 hours every few nights.  That’s been a real blessing, though the sickness with the other kids has interrupted that stretch most nights.

Most of the energy with the doctors at the moment has been going to the hearing problems that we know he has.  We’ve spent several long (4 -5 hour) appointments with the hearing specialists at Children’s.  His hearing loss is confirmed, it is moderate in his left ear and severe in his left.  The tests have indicated that it is a nerve damage problem, which is positive because it means they can effectively use hearing aids to boost the sounds that he can here.  He was fitted for the hearing aids last week and on Monday we have the appointment to get them hooked up!  We’re excited for him to be able to hear us and hope that he’ll respond well to our voices.  He’ll have to get the inserts refitted every few months as he’s growing so much in these first few years.

His hearing loss is stable and won’t deter ate according to the doctors.  He can also hear, but the levels are turned way down.  One estimate that was given to us was that he can hear a vacuum cleaner the way we would hear water dripping.  Even with the hearing aids he won’t ever be able to hear normaly, in much the same way that our older family members with hearing loss struggle to distinguish sounds in noisy environments, he’ll always wrestle with that.  But in like manner he’ll always be able to turn ‘em off when he’d rather not be hearing what’s going on J

Another big praise is our state legislature.  We found out a few weeks ago that insurance companies don’t pay for hearing aids, which left us facing ~$5,000 in out of pocket expenses for the hearing aids – even at his age, they’re critical since hearing is central to language development starting around 3 months.  Long story short, this year Colorado passed legislature requiring insurance companies to pay for hearing aids in children under 18.  We were still sketchy, since there has apparently been quite a bit of interpretation by the insurance companies about what that actually means.  But we found out on Thursday that Zeke’s hearing aids will be entirely paid for by the insurance, a tremendous blessing.

Plenty more appointments in the coming weeks – I’ll be better about a more frequent update and some more pictures in the coming weeks.  We’re desperate for life to slow down a bit and burrow in for the winter.  More on that project that I’m working on as well – it’s not ready to be unveiled yet, but it’s close.