After Jayse’s ear surgery this summer he had a significant hearing lost.  We found out months later that it was the worst case possible.  His hearing loss was not conductive but was nerve.  When you have nerve hearing loss there is almost nothing they can do to improve it.  A hearing aide doesn’t work because it only amplifies sound.  In nerve hearing loss amplifying the sound doesn’t help and might make it sound even worse.

Basically his only option is a cochlear implant.  They implant a piece behind his ear on the bone that has a magnet on it.  Then on the outside there is a piece that uses radio transmission to send vibrations to the piece implanted.  This by passes the damaged part of the ear and sends the transmissions to the brain.  It’s amazing how this works.

Getting the implant is a huge decision.  It costs a lot of money and it is life changing.  It would help Jayse to hear yes but he also would never be able to play contact sports after the implant.  He would always set off metal detectors.  Riding a bike and helmets could be an issue.  And the maintenance of the cochlear is expensive over the years.

Because it’s such a big decision they let you test it.  So we went to the Dr. to get the head piece and conductor for Jayse to wear for a few weeks.  He was pretty excited about it at first.

After we got the piece Jayse and I went and had lunch together.  We had some time to kill between his next apt.

His next apt. was to see the surgeon about his upcoming surgery.  When we got there he told us that the bone graph surgery we were going to do and then it got canceled was now back on.  It was a bit shocking.  I was prepared for it and then they told us we needed to wait until they did a jaw expansion and now he was telling us it was back on.  So after leaving the plan was to do the bone graph and a pharyngeal flap (this is where they were going to transfer tissue to the palate to make it longer, therefore making the opening to the throat smaller in hopes less of his speech would go through his nose).  

With Jayse wearing the cochlear demo we could tell a difference almost immediately.  He said he could hear more and he was saying what a lot less.

Once Jayse had his mouth surgery though he didn’t want to wear it much anymore.  We found out just a few weeks ago that our insurance is not going to cover the cochlear and the cost is huge and not something we can just pay.  We have decided to wait a few years anyway before we look at getting it again.  We do still have options for grants and other things so we’ll revisit this whole thing in another year or so.