Life just got a little bit harder

Jordan had one other appointment this week, which we went to today, well, Thursday. I’m not sure when I’ll get this blog posted. This final appointment was a follow up to the hearing screenings conducted while we were in the hospital the first few days of his life. The results of the very first screening were inconclusive, and then the results of the next screening were inconclusive as well so they set up this appointment at the Burnaby Speech and Hearing Centre. Now, the folks who tested him at the hospital urged us to try our best not to worry: newborns are tricky to test on because they have a tendency to squirm and wriggle, and in Jordy’s case, being born via c-section didn’t get him the head-squeeze, so fluids etc. can still be sloshing around in places. I took them at their word and didn’t worry at all. In fact I was mildly annoyed that they were making me go through all this hassle, sticking things to my kid’s head and whatnot, though I am now grateful. At any rate, if I had thought about it at all I would have known Chris would have worried plenty for the both of us, which he did; every other day I’d catch him snapping his fingers by Jordan’s head. Once again, I wasn’t worried; Jordan jumped plenty of times at very loud door banging, violent coughs or sneezes, etc. We kept the appointment and what concerns we had to ourselves, we didn’t want anyone to get worried until we knew for sure there was something to worry about. I think you know by now where I’m going with this post.

From today’s testing the audiologist determined that Jordan does have a hearing loss. She was unable to complete the entire test, as the infant needs to be asleep throughout and he started stirring before she could finish, but she got through enough to discover a “mild to moderate hearing loss.” She had yet to test what pitches he could and could not hear, but she says he will benefit from hearing aids. We don’t know much more than this. We are slated to return for more testing in a week and a half and she is referring us to a pediatric hearing specialist at BC Children’s Hospital who will help us to determine the cause of the impairment. We’ll keep everyone updated as usual through the blog.

It’s been an emotional day for us. Chris, though he says he thinks he’s had more time to “wrap his brain around the possibility” of this outcome, still can’t help feeling sad. And naturally, I’ve cried enough that my eyes are burning as I type tonight. Yes, I was upset that the dream of a perfectly healthy child is not to be for us. But more, I think I am worried. It’s hard enough being a parent, can Chris and I rise to the challenge of giving Jordy the extra support that he will need now? How do we answer him when he asks us why he has to be different from other kids? And for Jordan, it’s hard enough being a kid, now he has to have extra help to learn to communicate, will he learn to speak as quickly as other kids, will we all need to learn sign language, will he need special help in school, or an entire special school altogether? And what about socially; will he have a hard time making friends or finding someone to love? It’s a struggle just getting people to see beyond looks to the person you are inside, add a hearing aid to the equation for those people to get over and what is the result? And then of course there is the fear that this hearing loss comes along with a whole package of other neurological or developmental disabilities.

Chris and I are really trying our best to see the positives: It’s been diagnosed early enough that hopefully his hearing loss will have minimal impact on his speech development. He will become accustomed to wearing a hearing aid at a very early age. And finally, there are worse things – at least this one we can all eventually learn to live with, and once we do there doesn’t yet appear to be any reason why Jordan shouldn’t be capable of accomplishing anything he sets out to do. Here’s the happy moment in all of it: After the test and subsequent bombshell, the audiologist left the room so we could have some time to ourselves and she could sort out a couple of things for us; my face was a sopping, swollen mess and Chris and I turned to each other for a moment then both looked to Jordan only to see him give us one of his huge gummy smiles. It really did make us feel better for a moment, as laughter just washed over us. As his Daddy said later on, he couldn’t have picked a better time in his whole life to smile like that at us.