Mom of Hearing Impaired Child Celebrates Every Victory
By Kristi Bell - 11/1/2009
Little Rock Family Staff

Our journey began Feb. 12, 2003. I was admitted to the hospital for high blood pressure and for an induction the next day. I was very swollen and sick. Early the next morning I was induced, and Brett Randal Bell was born. He weighed more than six pounds and was an overall healthy baby. My husband, Randy, and I were overjoyed to have both a girl, Brynne, who was 19 months old at the time, and a boy.

The nurse came into our hospital room the next day to let us know that Brett had failed his routine newborn hearing screening. She told us that our pediatrician would refer us to Arkansas Children’s Hospital Ear, Nose and Throat clinic. When we took Brett to the clinic, the doctor recommended ear tubes to ensure Brett did not have any fluid from his birth in his ears. He received them when he was 3 months old.

After the tube surgery, Brett saw the audiologists at Children's. The ear tubes had not helped his hearing, so the doctors performed an Auditory Evoked Response (AER) Evaluation to determine the extent of Brett’s hearing loss. The AER results showed that Brett had a profound sensineural hearing loss in his left ear but had hearing within normal limits in his right ear. In other words, Brett was completely deaf in his left ear.

I do not think that Randy and I understood the full extent of the diagnosis at first. It took a while to let everything sink in. A million questions were going through my mind: What will we do? Will he be able to talk? What are his needs going to be? How will we meet them?

In October 2003, we took Brett back to the ACH audiology department for a follow up evaluation. We saw a wonderful audiologist named Jan Stroud, who is still our audiologist today. She explained every test that she performed on Brett. She evaluated Brett’s hearing once more and felt we needed another AER. This time, Brett was diagnosed with a moderate sensineural hearing loss in his right ear in addition to the profound loss in his left ear. He was fitted for a hearing aid at 8 months old.

More questions sprang to mind: Is he going to be okay? Will he be able to play sports? Where will we get help? What kind of life will he have with only one ear with a hearing aid to hear everything?

Blossoming
I have learned to take everything one step at time. I have also learned to celebrate every victory no matter how small. We lean a lot on God, knowing that this is the path He chose for Brett and our family.

Brett started speech therapy shortly after receiving his hearing aid. He started to say some words – “Kickey” for Mickey Mouse, “Dada,” “Mama.”

With our daughter starting preschool, I started looking for a new place to provide speech therapy for Brett. Several people recommended ACCESS Group and Brett started speech therapy there in March 2006.

I remember that one of my first questions to our new speech therapist was whether Brett was going to be able to go to kindergarten with his friends. She was careful not to give me any false hope, but I prayed to God continually that he would be "normal." I think parents' only wish is for their child to be normal in every sense of the word – talking, laughing, playing, and happy.

Brett really blossomed in his new speech therapy. Soon, he was saying more and more words. In July 2006, he was enrolled in an intensive speech-based class. He was only 3 years old, and I was apprehensive about him going to school full-time at such a young age, but he really took off!

It became apparent that Brett also needed physical therapy and occupational therapy. During the school day, he received speech, occupational therapy and physical therapy. Brett learned to tie his shoes, brush his teeth and dress himself properly. He also learned how to write with the methods that the therapists teach.

Brett continued to make tremendous progress over the next two years. He started saying five- and six-word sentences and telling me exactly what he wanted. He started learning to read and learning to do math. He could tell me if he was hurt. I think one of the most important things is to be able to tell me if he was hurt. He could do that!

One piece of advice I would give someone in my shoes is to follow your “motherly instinct.” I think God gave mothers a “sixth sense” to know when things are right for their children. Last year, Randy and I decided to mainstream Brett to kindergarten. It was a hard decision, but we all felt it was the right time. With lots of prayer and the help of the kindergarten teacher, Brett transitioned to Levy Christian Kindergarten for a semester and then moved to Central Arkansas Christian for kindergarten the rest of the year so he could be at the same school with his sister. The staff at Central Arkansas Christian was exceptional to us during this transition.

A Full Life and Full Heart
Brett loves life itself! He is now in first grade at Central Arkansas Christian in Sherwood and he continues to receive outpatient speech therapy at ACCESS after school. He loves school. Math and reading are his favorite subjects. My heart is so full when I see him playing and talking with other children his age. He loves playing soccer and baseball. He is, of course, a big Razorback, St. Louis Cardinals and NASCAR fan.

There are great things coming Brett’s way, too. This past summer, our audiologist told us of studies being done on patients who receive a cochlear implant in a deaf ear while having a hearing aid in the other ear. We have decided to pursue this avenue. Through science, Brett may be able to hear in his deaf ear. How amazing is that!

I love watching him play. I love hearing him read a book. I love hearing him belly laugh while playing with his sister. I love watching him do the things that make him happy. One of my favorite memories is when he headed for home plate at one of his first T-ball games. He ran so hard all the way and made it to home plate. I cried at that game because there was a time I wasn’t sure if he would ever able to do those things. Now, I know he can.