Bimodal, binaural hybrid hearing

The wondering "if" they will choose Lily as a cochlear implant candidate is hard sometimes and the end of this month when we meet with Dr. Antonelli again can't come quickly enough. I have been looking online lately for even more information that supports why I want to pursue the implant for Lily so that I will know what I am talking about when we see Dr. Antonelli and his team. It is not hard to find information supporting the importance of binaural hearing, either in the form of 2 hearing aids or 2 cochlear implants and I am hopeful that the team will be aware of the latest research supporting binaural hearing.

What is hard to find is information about someone in Lily's position with relatively no hearing in one ear and a small, but fairly significant amount in the other. There isn't much out there about it and I wasn't sure what to call it when I first began my search but now have found that there are people out there with a cochlear implant in one ear and a hearing aid in the other and that this is called bimodal hearing or hybrid hearing.

The reason that Lily is a borderline candidate for the cochlear implant is because she does not have a severe-profound loss in both ears. That appears to be the minumum criteria for most clinics that I have found. There are clinics in various parts of the country who are implanting adults 18 and up with just moderate hearing loss in both ears. On a side note, people who are completely deaf in one ear and have normal hearing in the other ear are not candidates at all for cochlear implants, even though it can be severely debilitating to have hearing in only one ear.

The thing about Lily's hearing loss that is in her favor for receiving a cochlear implant is that her loss in her left ear (her "good" ear) is "sloping". This means that if you look at her audiogram, her loss is in the high frequency range and it slopes down to the bottom of the chart. No matter how much her hearing is amplified with a hearing aid, there are sounds in the speech banana that she will never hear. Hearing aids only amplify sounds, they can't do anything to change what frequencies she hears. And that is why a cochlear implant is so important for her speech and language development. She will never hear "s" sounds or any of the higher frequency sounds without an implant. I have already decided that if she is not a candidate at this time for an implant that we will start introducing more and more signs, even though that is not what we are supposed to do with AV therapy. I just want to get words into her and stop the misunderstandings and frustrations we deal with everyday due to her limited way of expressing herself.

Speaking of binaural hearing, Lily is scheduled to get 2 new hearing aids on Monday. One will be one that we are purchasing. The other will be a loaner that CHS is buying on our behalf that they will be able to loan out to other families when and if Lily gets her implant. We will no longer be dealing with the audiologist at Tallahassee Ear Nose and Throat and will be going to the audiologist at the FSU Speech and Hearing Clinic, which is a good thing in my opinion. I am curious about what Lily's reaction will be to the 2nd aid. She has been trying to put her hearing aid into her right ear lately even though it is custom fit for her left ear only.

-Kriste