New Ears, New Tears

As you may have read in previous posts, Sadie's hearing has progressively gotten worse over the past 2 years.  It has decreased by about 10 db in various frequencies.  As must as I didn't want to admit it, I knew it was probably time to get new hearing aids.  I love, love, love (did I mention that I love) her current hearing aids (Widex Baby 440).  However, they just don't have enough power to support Sadie's current hearing thresholds. 

So, off to the Audiologist we went.  We spoke a lot about the various options that we had, however, I knew that I wanted to stay with the Widex brand if at all possible.  They are the Cadillac of hearing aids, and they are worth every penny.  After previous experiences with different brands, there was no way I could go backwards.  Our audiologist called up the pediatric rep for Widex and said "Do you remember Sadie Lovins?" and her response was "Do I remember her? I have her all over my marketing collateral." Sadie was the first child at MEI fit with the Widex Baby hearing aids, so the sales reps used her as a case study for a conference.  Anyways, after discussing the various options for Sadie, the rep decided to let us borrow her loaner aids.  She said that she thought Widex might be coming out with something new, but she didn't know what it was or when.  So instead of us buying something now (and potentially outdated soon), she was gracious enough to let us borrow this set of aids until we find out what is in store for the future. Thank you Widex!!!  Her new aids are the Clear Fusion 440.

The hard part with these new aids, however, was that Sadie would have to transition to a more typical ear mold.  The Widex Baby's have been great because they have the receive in the canal.  They are super easy to put in and they hardly show!  But with that type of receiver comes less power. So we had an ear mold created while we were visiting the audiologist.  We hadn't had one created in over 2 years!

A couple of weeks later when we were at MEI for speech therapy, her audiologist let us know that her aids came in. She had a few minutes to spare, so she was able to fit Sadie in to her schedule (nice not to have to make another trip down to MEI!)  I had been talking to Sadie about how she was going to get "big girl hearing aids" and she had been excited, so I figured this transition would be a piece of cake.  Oh how I was wrong.

The first thing Sadie said was "They aren't pink."  Uh oh, here we go.  Next when I tried to put them in her ears she FREAKED out. She started sobbing and asking for her old hearing aids back.  The audiologist immediately turned the aids down, thinking that maybe they were too loud. I knew, however, that it was just Sadie not liking the new ear molds.  Talk about breaking my heart. She cried and cried for about 20 minutes.  The whole time I am trying to calm her down without breaking down myself. I just kept thinking, this is SO not fair that she has to go through this.  But, I finally got my head straighted out and realized that it could be so much worse.  So, after lots of hugs (and a bribe of a new toy), I was able to get the new aids in her ears.  She still did not like them, but she kept them in. I didn't feel comfortable leaving her all day with these new aids for fear of another melt down, so I ended up taking the day off work.  And off to the toy store we went.

All day I asked Sadie if I could put jewels or glitter on her new aids, but she would not let me (odd for her).  At nap time she asked to keep them in.  I was in no mood for an argument, so I let her.  That night she asked to keep them in all night (odd again), so I told her that we had to let her ears breathe.  I tried AGAIN to let her allow me to jazz up her aids, and she finally let me! So we blinged out her aids, and now she LOVES them.  She went to school the next day and was showing off her aids to all the teachers and her friends. At nap time she said to her teacher "you can take my aids out, but try not to break them, they are new."  Man I love that kid! 



  Her old aids and new aids side by side (check out that bling).

How her old aids used to look in her ear

 How her new aids look in her ear.  You can see the mold is very different and how it could feel funny to her.