THE Hearing Aid!!

Our Baby B finally has hearing aids, yeah!!! Starkey Foundation has been wonderful at assisting and advising me, and have now provided two at low cost. So far we're using one, with the second to be added after we've adjusted and gotten used to using the first.

Yesterday, taking advantage of having NO medical appointments for babies (!!!), I researched several issues instead. Lately I've been blog hopping late at night (or even in the day, I admit), and not just because I LOVE reading how other people live and admiring their creativity and seeing the pictures of their beautiful, highly functional families...although I do a lot...but I also figured that soon or later visiting one of these amazing mother-of-many-children blogs, that someone would have special needs kids. Today I discovered this one, Octamom! (Yep, 8 kids, including a hearing impaired daughter and twins, and she homeschools.)

I related to her story of her daughter being fitted with the hearing aids, walking out, and no further help...until the hero of the story, the mother of course, tracked down a group who would answer their questions. Here in Bolivia, the lady at the hearing aid clinic/store/whatever it is just put it in his ear and said to come back in two weeks and I was like uh.......that CAN'T be all there is to this. When do we take it out? Then how do we put it back in? How do we know if the volume is too high? Can't that volume knob be moved wayyy too easily? (Answer: it can! By the time we got home, several errands later, it was twice as high as she had set it. Oops!)

And the main problem: the highly valuable end practically flaps in the wind it's so loose on him. With a spastic little body and (currently) 16 brothers and sisters, this is NOT gonna work. So now I'm researching how to better secure it. The tias and I are also curious as to what the little switch is, or does. I'm already planning to go back early next week, and hopefully the main guy will be there and can answer our rapidly growing list of questions. Also it seems to me that B isn't responding any better so I think the volume will need to be increased, or is that due to the brain damage, or that he can't control where he looks very well? Talk about a wad of issues at once!! This is going to be interesting. Now to find a blogger with a baby with cerebral palsy...