Splendid Mayhem: Hearing Test Results

Welcome To Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Hearing Test Results

The Audiologist will be sending me 'formal' results- but here's what we know now-

His hearing is good at least in his 'good ear'. (Whatever the crap that means!) He wasn't the most compliant child (imagine that!) in sitting still- so she wasn't able to get 'perfect' pictures of both ears. He was still on antibiotics for an ear infection, which can affect the results.

She said that his Ped needs to keep a close eye on him and we need to push our insurance to cover speech (since he qualifies). Isn't this the story of my life. They are still denying Logen. A 5 y/o NON-VERBAL child that ASPIRATES does NOT qualify for Speech Therapy according to Cigna. Go figure. Thank goodness for Medicaid! Parker has no hope since he doesn't qualify. Don't get me started on the government aspect of helping middle class families! We are to poor to provide medical things for our family, yet according to them- we make to much for help. Makes me love the people that sit on their butts and do nothing all day even more......

For now, I am pretty confident that his speech delay IS NOT hearing related! Yippee.