Journey to Better Hearing

Welcome back to Taylor Talks!

Today my little sister took another step in her journey to better hearing: she went to the ENT.

I haven't been able to go on any of the doctors' visits lately, because they've all been on Monday mornings when I'm teaching sign language. This morning was no different; my sister's appointment was scheduled for half an hour before I was due to be teaching sign language two towns away. While I couldn't go to the ENT's office, I did get to hear all about the experiences once my parents and I were home together.

There was another audiologist at the ENT's office, so first my little sister had to go through another round of testing. Here, they also wanted to look at the medical side of the hearing loss though, which is where the ENT came into play. Apparently, the nerves in my sister's ears are completely dead, so there's no chance that her hearing will ever get better. While they didn't say for sure that it would get worse over time, my mom said that it seemed as though that would be the case.

My mom had to go through the twins' whole background with the doctor, from their premature births to their drug addiction to their heart surgeries. But here's the biggest problem with adopting children: you have no family background. We don't know their family history so we don't know if there's some Great Uncle Jim or Great Grandma Jane who had the same hearing loss. We don't know anything from before the girls were born. This means that the doctor is limited in what he's able to figure out about my sister's hearing loss.

We did learn something interesting from today's visit... the fact that my sisters were born with holes in their hearts could have something to do with the hearing loss. Apparently, the ears and the heart are directly correlated with one another. The hole in the heart may have caused a heart murmur that we don't know about, which in turn could have caused the hearing loss. We're hoping that this isn't the case. My mom actually has to take my sister for an EKG now to check that out, just to be on the safe side and make sure nothing's weird with my sister's heart. But there's a really good chance that there's hearing loss in the biological family that we don't know about, and that's where this is coming from. We just have no idea. My sister also needs a CT scan of her ear so the doctors can see exactly what they're working with.

The good news is that it shouldn't take too much longer to get the hearing aids made. My sister has to go back for another appointment to be completely fitted for the pieces, and that's pretty much the last thing that has to be done on our end. The doctor showed my parents and sister what a hearing aid looks like up close and explained how it works, and my mom said that my sister will be able to pick out what color she wants. Twin B picked purple glasses, her favorite color, so I'm sure that Twin A will follow the same thought process and is going to be picking pink hearing aids.

I'm kind of bummed that I couldn't go to the appointment today, because it sounded really informative and interesting. I'm sure that I would have loved learning about the hearing aids up close and personal, because that's right up my alley with my college minor in Deaf Studies. But I had a good time teaching sign language today, and hopefully I'll be able to go to the next ENT appointment that my sister needs to attend. In the meantime, at least I'm having fun with all of the sign language we've been using around the house. My little sisters are both loving all of the new signs we're teaching them!

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Thanks!
Taylor

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