1 in 1,000 babies are born with unilateral hearing loss (hearing loss in one ear) and lucky Collin is now a statistic (perhaps when he's 21 the odds will work in his favor in Vegas). We took Collin to a follow up with an audiologist yesterday because he didn't pass his left ear screening at the hospital (we assumed it was fluid build up). Two hours later, the Audiologist asked us "how we felt" upon hearing our son had severe hearing loss in his left ear--meaning he can't hear past 80 decibels, the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Both of us were a little dumbfounded by the question but Mike answered diplomatically, "Glad it's not worse, I guess." Obviously there are much worse things, heart problems, cancer, complete deafness, blindness, I could go on and on. Still, we want our child to be healthy of course, to not have pre-determined obstacles...Kids with unilateral hearing loss statistically do worse in school, have behavior problems, learning problems, speech problems but the good news is there are much better outcomes when they catch it early (thank God for Oregon's newborn screening requirements). We go back in a few weeks for further diagnostic testing, poor Collin gets things stuck in his ears and glued to his head to measure brain activity. Then will be referred to an ear, nose and throat doctor. They also want to keep monitoring to make sure his right ear doesn't get worse.
Most likely he'll be fitted with a hearing aid at 6 months and start speech therapy at a young age. Our little guy is still perfect but things will be a little more challenging for him or to give a typical grown-up response: "It will make him stronger."
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