Once and done

I often think of the adoption information meeting I attended one Saturday afternoon years ago in a city near us.  I mistakenly thought it was about adoption in general, but it was about adopting from China. I decided to stay, since I had driven all the way there, especially since there was only one other couple in attendance.  And I figured I would probably learn something.   

The presenter explained the definition of special needs adoption as being on a spectrum from medically fragile to hearing loss, and added, "If the child has hearing loss, you get hearing aids, and it's once and done." 

I am here to say respectfully that there is nothing once and done about it.  Infants require new molds to be made frequently for new ear molds. (And then when the mold is returned from the factory, it requires an appointment with audiology to fit the mold to the hearing aids.) The mold tubing can break.  The child's hearing can change, so there are frequent hearing tests to stay on top of that.  

BK was always good at letting us know when a battery died, and by the time he was 3 1/2, he was changing his own batteries (with supervision). 

He graduated to rechargeable hearing aids just after he turned 6, and started keeping them in his room, putting them in his charger at night and in his ears in the morning. 

(He also had 6 or 7 years of speech therapy and he - and we - had 3 years of commuting 70 miles to school.)

At 9 he graduated to hearing aids with domes instead of molds (this is the more invisible type).  But with technology comes technological glitches. 

When we travel, I take a hearing aid troubleshooting bag along with our first aid bag. 

I cannot count the number of times I have shipped a hearing aid to the pediatric audiology clinic to be repaired or (more frequently) to be shipped back to the manufacturer for repair or replacement.

One was in for repairs for a few weeks, and then we were gone 10 days.  When we got it back, we discovered it needs to be reprogrammed. We attempted a remote programming appointment, but the app wasn't working.  That required a 70 mile (one-way) trip for an appointment in-person.  

Hearing loss is not once and done. It's a lifetime of appointments, strategies, and potentially anxiety.  One morning in church, BK said he wished there were a laser pointer so he would know what words the congregation is singing at that moment. :(