How my youngest is getting on with her hearing aids.

Ellie finally got her hearing aids a couple of weeks before Christmas. They were a long time coming, she was waiting for them for around 10 months because the doctor didn't refer her to the right department but they have been worth the wait and she has taken to them like a duck to water.

The hearing aids that Ellie has are CROS hearing aids. A CROS hearing aid is a special type of hearing aid for people who have little to no hearing in one ear and have normal hearing in the other ear. CROS stands for Contralateral Routing of Sound.

With CROS hearing aids, sound is wirelessly transmitted from the deaf ear into the better ear. What looks like a conventional hearing aid is worn on the deaf ear, but this is a microphone only. This microphone picks up sound from your poorer side and sends it wirelessly into a conventional hearing aid on your better ear. It is then heard and processed by the brain. 

Ellie's appointment with the audiologist to get her hearing aids took around 40 minutes. The man went over everything we needed to know about them. We were shown how to change the tubes which need changing every few months and the batteries which need changing every 4 or so days in one side and about once a week in the other. Ellie was shown how to clean them and most importantly how to put them on. She did it first try which doesn't usually happen. hehehe When she put them in and they were switched on it was emotional to see. She described it perfectly, it was like sitting in a dark room and someone switching on a light. Everything became clear and made a little more sense.

Wearing the hearing aid now means that Ellie can hear sounds from both sides without her turning her head, they don't help her realise where a sound is coming from but she can at least hear the sound now.

Apparently Ellie was supposed to start off wearing the hearing aids as long as she could and then give herself a break from them when everything became too much but she hasn't hit that point yet. She takes them off for bed, when she is in the bath and when she's on her computer with headphones on but she has been wearing them all day with no problems, headaches or having any sensory overload issues.

It sounds dramatic to say these hearing aids have changed Ellie's life already but they have. She is hearing much more and it makes conversations with her much easier. If we were on a bus and she had her bad ear towards me she would struggle to have a conversation. Now she doesn't miss a word. She was at school and her teacher was stood at her deaf side speaking and the teacher is a good one, when she finished speaking she went to make sure that Ellie knew what she was doing but because of hearing aid she had heard everything, clearly! I am sure the hearing aids will really help her at school. She came home on the last day of school before the Christmas holidays and said she had to turn her hearing aid down because she didn't realise how loud people were when they were typing on the keyboard on the computer.

I am so happy for Ellie and it is amazing how some wires and a little bit of plastic can change her life so much. We are back at the hospital in February for a check up and to see how she's getting on with the hearing aids but I can't see there being any problems apart from sometimes forgetting to put them on.