Hearing aids

 Today was a big day for Kelson.  He got his hearing aids!  We've been working toward this for a few months now and we were all pretty excited to get them.  Claire and I talked about it this morning and she wondered if they will hurt him and what tool will we use on them.  She also asked at dinner tonight if she had hearing aids when she was a baby. 

We headed to ECHO for our 8:30 appointment.  We spent time working with Miss Jean, the audiologist, learning how to care for the aids, change the batteries and about how sophisticated the aids are.  In our goody box we even got a childrens book about an elephant who has hearing aids. It sounds like Daddy & Claire are reading it right now. 

Kelson's aids are set to hear everything but an adult aid can be changed depending on the sound situation you are in.  Well, his can to, but they aren't.  He needs to learn speach and you can't rule anything out that might help him learn his speach.  It's a pretty technological little tool.  We will work with the audiologist and therapists on a regular basis to get them set to just the right settings for him. 

Kelson is only wearing his aids for short amounts of time right now.  He had them on for around 20 minutes this morning and then we put them in for a couple of hours tonight.  The didn't seem to bother him at all tonight.  We noticed quite a bit of feedback in his left ear but we'll work on that.  In a few days we will teach the sitter all the tricks and he can wear them during the day too. 

We're not confident that he is hearing more but my first thought is that yes, he is hearing more clearly now.  He has been smiling when he has them in, doesn't mess with them, and turns toward us when we are talking to him.  Only time will tell, but this was a big step toward conquering this auditory nueropathy.