Sandy Southwest

Speech therapy

Our family's journey with speech therapy started about 9 years ago, with the birth of Big A.  Born at 33 weeks, she was small, just 4 lbs. 11 oz., but she was healthy and perfect in every way.  She had been sick during the pregnancy and was brought into the world early, because she was getting sicker each day she remained inside.  She remained behind developmentally, which was totally expected.  She was sick quite a bit - I believe that she had pneumonia 4 times that first winter.  She was also diagnosed aplastic anemic at 9 months old.  That was resolved wtih using iron supplements each day with her for 6 months.  Though by age 1, she had caught up with most babies her age - she walked right after her first birthday!  However, she wasn't speaking.

One day, Mike came home from work.  Now, at this time, we were in Germany, living in a 3rd floor apartment, up 5 flights of stairs.  Our stairwell echoed quite well, mostly due to the fact that it had marble floors and was very spacious in both width and height.  We shared this stairwell with 5 other families.  And when ever someone came home, you could here the big, heavy, metal doors slam shut (or the door open when they were leaving).  So, Mike came home and "shut" the door - it slammed each time.  No matter how hard you tried - the doors always slammed shut.  The kids would rush up to greet him.  Nothing out of the ordinary - until the day when Big A was sitting on the floor with her back turned the front door.  Big M and Little M were behind her back when Mike rushed in and "shut" the door.  M & M went running over to meet him.  But, big A?  She still sat with her back to the door.

I didn't think of it at the time.  I just tucked in back in my mind to deal with at some later point.  I picked her up and showed her Daddy was home! 

2 days later, big A was sitting there again...with her back turned playing.  I was vacuuming the carpet where she was and told her several times to get out of the way.  She never moved!  So, I bumped her with the vacuum to get her attention...

and I scared her death!  She jumped high!  Literally, jumped!  She started screaming and ran into my arms.  I had scared and surprised her when I bumped her with the vacuum!

Can you imagine the warning bells going off in my head now? 

Immediately, we made an appointment with her dr.  She then was sent to see the audiologist at the big military hospital.  And there, we were given a diagnosis - she had a 100% hearing loss in both ears.  The audiologist said that it was due to 2 causes:  1) her ears had not finished developing after she was born due to fluid in the ears and 2) the aplastic anemia had caused her ears to not develop - her body was trying to survive, and because hearing is not a vital necessity, the energy was directed elsewhere.

So, why wasn't this caught when she was born?  Because standard hearing checks for newborns didn't become mandatory until 1998 - 6 months after she was born!

So, our sweet little daugher could NOT hear.  Our options were 1) allow the doctor to puncture a hole to remove all the fluid or 2) use medication.  The medication would take longer.  We opted for the medication - mostly to avoid surgery at all cost!  She spent 9 months on medication, drying up all the excess fluid in her middle and inner ear tubes.

She was able to hear within 6 months!  And so started speech therapy....