Going for the Bilaterals

Aiden had his last behavioral soundbooth January 12th. Well, obviously not his LAST, but his last one before his big day (which is just three short weeks away!). They tested each ear separately and the results were very similar to his last test -- he showed responses, with his hearing aids in, at 45db to 50 db across all frequencies. What is weird is he always seems to dip a little in the middle frequencies, his audiogram looks like the speech banana to a sort.

We took the past month or two and really looked at all the pros and cons of bimodal (one CI and one hearing aid) and bilateral (two CIs). We researched and read all we could on each. We know families whose child(ren) have been successful with bimodal and bilateral CIs. We questioned and questioned, but what we always came back to was that bilateral would be best for Aiden. We decided to wait and make the FINAL decision the day of this past soundbooth, but with no improvements, our decision had been made.

Here are just a few things we looked at when making our decision.

What we liked about bilateral CIs:

• Better localization and better understanding of speech in noise-- Kids learn so much from other kids and we believe that bilateral CIs will be a huge help in the classroom - for the noise and to help determine whom is speaking and from which direction.
• Better sound quality and more sound balance
• Less fatigue at the end of the day - I know at the end of any seminar I attend, I am worn out. Who would ever think listening would be such a hard task, but for a deaf/hoh child, even with cochlear implants, it can be very tiring!
• If one side breaks, there's the second one for back up.
• I also read many personal stories from parents or kids themselves saying that their child became more social with peers and participated more in class once they were bilaterally implanted. I believe this has to do with confidence. I can relate this to one of my fourth graders. I knew his hearing could fluctuate due to fluid/tubes. Whenever he was very quiet in class, stopped participating, and was very apprehensive if called upon, it alerted me to contact mom. Once the problem was corrected medically, he was a whole new student.

Some of the places we found helpful information on bilateral CIs are here, here, here, and here.

In this write-up, Is Bilateral Really Better?, this wonderful mom (and mentor to all us newbies out here), did an excellent job comparing unilateral vs. bilateral CIs. And, as she states in her article, bilateral CI's are not for everyone. There may be significant usable hearing in one ear, there may be insurance issues, or maybe medical issues that do not allow for two implants among other things. We are lucky that we have the choice between bimodal or bilateral, and bilateral is what we've determined is best for our baby.

What we liked about bimodal:

When we started seeing Aiden doing well with his hearing aids and learned his deafness was due to EVAS, we started thinking about just implanting one side. Here are factors we considered when making this decision.

• Use of residual hearing -- Through the great use of his aids and his learning to listen, Aiden has shown us that he does have some residual hearing, and therefore the sound of music and sound quality in general could be better for him. With CI's you hear electronically, with hearing aids you still hear acoustically (the difference was described to me by the analogy of a song played on an acoustic guitar vs. the same song played on an electric guitar). In a bimodal situation, it allows for all sounds of speech through the CI (hearing aids provide more lower frequency sounds than the higher ones), yet still allows for natural acoustic hearing through the hearing aid. One thing we had to consider though, was with his EVAS, his residual hearing can be lost progressively, or one day, completely gone.
• Future technological advances - This has always been a thought in the back of our minds, should we "save" an ear for future technologies? We are sure that one day there will be better technologies, but we decided we needed to stay in the now and the known. NOW is the time that Aiden is in his prime learning stages and what we know is that cochlear implants will provide him optimal learning capabilities.

When researching bimodal, this is one article I found interesting.

All in all, we decided that bilateral implants are a better choice for Aiden and our family. Therefore, on February 11th (with certification from our insurance, which we're still waiting on, please cross your fingers all goes through!), Aiden will get his cochlear implants. Our surgeon agreed to perform simultaneous implant surgery, which will save Aiden from having to go through a second surgery months from now. Recovery may be a little rougher (hard to sleep on either side), but again, we feel this is the best for Aiden and we can't be more excited (or nervous)!