The WORST day...

Here’s a little story about my oldest daughter, and one of the WORST days of my life…..

When she was about 2 and ½ I started having concerns with her hearing.  It seemed the TV was
always too loud and I had to say her name a LOT before she heard me….but then again, why would
I be too concerned….there is this thing called “selective hearing” and she was just a kid. Who
wants to listen to their mom at that age?!?.....Well, at her 3 yr. dr. apt. she didn't quite understand
the hearing test, so they said we could just try again at 4 yrs, but just over a month later I realized
how bad it had gotten...so I took her into an audiologist..what they found was not good, but VERY
rare, so our audiologist thought maybe she did something wrong and so she wanted a second
test/opinion….Whatever was happening it seemed urgent….usually you have to make appointments
for this kind of stuff and wait weeks to come back in, but she left the room and got another audiologist
from the clinic to sit down for 30 minutes and give the whole test again…...

This was the day I sat in the room with my little girl sitting on my lap and heard so many beeps go by
that she didn't respond too :( , then after the test as she sat on my lap again, I got the news: she had
nerve damage and congenital hearing loss (born with it).  I tried not to cry while she sat on my lap,
the balling came much later when I was alone in my house..... The type of hearing loss that she has
is normally only seen with 1 of 6 syndromes, 2 of which involve death at a very young age….so she
had to go through a lot of tests to rule these out (EKG's and lots of pokes and bloodwork)…as of
now, 4 of the 6 (including the most serious ones) are ruled out!! We will not know about the other
two until much later in life when she’ll have an MRI….for now she has two hearing aids and gets
re-tested every six months, since this hearing loss may be progressive they need to monitor how
much and how quickly it is changing…which is my greatest fear right now…My little girl could be
deaf at anytime in the future :(  Also, it is hereditary so when Natalie turned 3 we had to have her
tested as well but thankfully she passed with flying colors….I just hope you’ll do the same as I have
been doing, and just say a little prayer each night that it only stays the same and doesn’t get
worse…Thanks!