Can you repeat that?

Can you repeat that? I've been saying that A LOT lately. At first I thought I was losing my mind (and my hearing) because I could simply not hear or clearly understand the spoken word unless spoken to a very high volume. One evening, after asking my busband, who was standing 5 feet away from me, repeat himself 3 times, I knew it was time to see an ENT.

I thought I had some permanent hearing loss from all the ear infections I suffered as a child so I prepared myself to accept that hearing aides may be in my future. However, after a hearing test, my ear drums checked as fine as well as my sensory nerves. So what in the world was causing me to miss so much?

The doctor diagnosed me with Otosclerosis. It sounds much more serious than what it actually is. To sum it all up, the bones of my middle ear have fused together preventing the sound vibrations to pass through to my inner ear. The Stapes bone, also known as the Stirrup bone, vibrates as sound is passed through which then results in the inner ear transmitting the sounds to the brain to be processed into words and sounds (Amazing, huh). After a hearing test was completed, I was told that I had a 45% hearing loss in my right ear and 35% hearing loss in my left ear. No wonder I couldn't hear or understand things!

So when did this Otosclerosis start? We asked the doctor that questions, but there is really no way to determine when it started or if I had it all along. There are disagreements among doctors as to whether Otosclerosis is hereditary. Some believe it is but if it is, it generally skips 1 to 2 generations, so it makes it hard to link as hereditary. Most doctors believe that Otosclerosis begins to develop in your mid-twenties, but most people with Otosclerosis do not notice much of a change in their hearing until they are older and in which they simply opt for hearing aides, thinking their hearing is failing due to old age.

I saw a drastic change in my hearing once we moved into our new home in Alabama. I thought the house, with it's wood floors and high ceilings, were causing and "echo" affect making it hard for me to hear. We now know the house was not the issue. When we moved into this house, I was 3 months pregnant. Throughout my pregnancy and immediately after our son's birth, I noticed my hearing deteriorating. We learned from the ENT that the hormonones in a woman's body when pregnant will make the Otosclerosis much worse. Once again, I was thankful I was not losing my mind, but there was a reason my hearing dropped so rapidly.

I have three options to treat Otosclerosis: !) do nothing 2) hearing aides 3) surgery. Number 1 is not even an option, so that leaves 2 & 3. We have learned in our research that when choosing a surgeon to operate on your ear, you want to chose a surgeon who has done this on a frequent basis. As with all surgeries, something can go wrong, but if it went wrong in my case, I could lose all hearing. (Thankfully they do one ear at a time, so if you did lose your hearing in one ear, you'd still have the other ear to hear some) We've seen a local surgeon who has done hundreds of these surgeries, but we are still not convinced that he is who we want to go with, if I do have the surgery. As things are currently, I have to be in the same room with our son (if awake) otherwise I cannot hear him. When he's taking a nap, if I do not have on the monitor, I cannot hear him crying until he is yelling at the top of his lungs. As of today, we are still locating other surgeons who may have done this type of surgery, a stapendotomy, a few more times.

When visiting with the local surgeon, he had me try on hearing aides and I could not believe how much I was missing. I actually had to tell my husband not to talk so LOUD! I'm not opposed to wearing aides. They are so small these days you can hardly tell someone is wearing them, BUT, it's just something else that needs time and attention and upkeep.

I told my hubby that if we do have the surgery, it needs to be done asap. I need to be able to leave our son in a room, even for just a few seconds, and hear him at the same time. Once our son is mobile, if he's awake, I will be trapped in the same room with him because I would be too afraid to step out knowing I could not hear if something happened or was about to happen. Also with the surgery, I am to avoid picking up anything heavy and all bending over. Hmm...that's rather hard to avoid with a baby and once our son is mobile, it will be even more difficult. Recovery of your hearing may take up to 6 months, in which our son would be a year old.

If I had the surgery done locally, I could have my right ear done this year. I could always put off my left ear for awhile, if everything went well with surgery on my right. There are lots of if's!

Whatever we do, surgery or hearing aides, I can't wait for my hubby to say "can you hear me now?" and I can answer YES!!!!!!!!!!!