Our Story

After months of dealing with constant ear infections, Harper went in to Children's Hospital on February 26 to have tubes and her tongue clipped. Before, the ENT had told us that she had mild hearing loss due to the infections and when the fluid was drained she would go back to normal hearing. The audiologist had suggested that she have an auditory brainstem response (ABR) done while she was under the anesthesia just to check things out. Luke and I thought this was common procedure. We were actually pretty excited about her surgery because we thought she would start making more speech progress when the infection was gone.

The doctor came in after the tubes were in place to tell us that the surgery was a success, but she had no fluid after all. He said the audiologist was performing the ABR and would be in to give us the results after it was complete. He said have a nice day, blah, blah, see you in a year.

In a few minutes the audiologist came in accompanied by the doctor. At that point I knew something wasn't right. She told us that the ABR showed a sensorineural hearing loss--moderate in the right ear, severe to profound in the left. I asked her to clarify what that meant, and she said that Harper could hear around 90 decibels in here left ear and a rock concert is 100 decibels. She recommended hearing aids in both ears. I asked, " How long will she have to wear them?" The audiologist said, "For life". There is no cure, no surgical fix. That is the point that reality set in, and I didn't hear much that was said after that.

The past two months have been life changing for Luke and me. We have dealt with the reality that things will be different for Harper, and things will be different for us as well. Of course, we still have a hard time dealing with this news, but God has allowed us to grieve quickly so we can spend our time focusing on helping Harper's development.

Today is my first Mother's Day. I am thankful for the blessing that Harper has been in my life. We are thankful for every single improvement. This situation has made us slow down enough to recognize the miracles that happen every day.