Living La Vida Lum: Our Kylie

Our blog has always been dedicated to Living La Vida Lum and while all the posts have been rather upbeat and fun at times sometimes they aren't as fun! This post would be one of the exceptions. This post is not made to bring you down or for you to be sad or to look for your sympathy. It is truly meant to keep you up to date on Living La Vida Lum, Kylie Lum that is.

So to start from the beginning, well not that far back. A few months ago Kylie's school approached us at Kylie not being at the same speech level as the other kids in her class. As parents of only one child, we don't have anything to compare her speech level to. However, it soon became apparent when we would listen to her in class compared to some others that she would talk and interact but her vocabulary wasn't as expanded as others. We spent every night for weeks on end working flash cards and asking her to name things and her vocabulary grew but her pronunciation of words did not. We decided to take her for a speech evaluation and anticipated that she would need some therapy. What we found out at this initial appointment sent shock waves through our household.

Kylie failed the initial hearing test! We decided to take her for a private evaluation to an Audiologist and see if this state test could possibly be true. After all, Kylie could hear us upstairs when we called her and she communicated with us. This had to be wrong. After having every hearing test possible performed on Kylie and repeated two times the results were confirmed. Kylie has severe loss of hearing in her right ear and severe to moderate hearing loss in her left. To put it in perspective for her to hear the sound level of a jack hammer is the level she can hear normally at. Everything else she is straining to hear. What does this all mean? Where do we go from here? How is Kylie?

Well, Kylie will have to wear hearing aids or some type of hearing instruments for the rest of her life (the hearing aids arrive on Thursday) for both ears. We are in hopes that she will hear better with the use of the aids. Kylie has a week full of tests this week to help rule out further complications with hearing loss. She will have a Seated ABR (Hearing test), an EKG and a MRI. Add in a dentist appointment and a 3 year old check-up and we will be in the doctor office all week. We are happy to say that on Friday Kylie passed her vision test which sometimes vision and hearing loss go hand in hand.

With the loss of hearing at the magnitude of Kylie's (she passed the newborn hearing screen), her ENT is leaning towards a diagnosis of progressive hearing loss. This can mean that she will loose her ability to hear altogether. Whether this will be in 2 days, 8 weeks, 56 months or 80 years we have no idea. With the amazing technology out there with cochlear implants etc, hearing aids that are Bluetooth enabled and more studies and all the current research out there we are optimistic about the diagnosis.

We would be lying if we said this was an easy diagnosis for us. We have been making a lot of lemonade lately. However, we only see this as a small bump or obstacle in our path in life. There is an old Chinese proverb that says, "Crisis is opportunity." Now it is up to the Lum family to do something about this opportunity we were given. Sitting back and being in denial or depression about it is not going to help Kylie at all.

We can't wait to share the pictures of Kylie with her cute hearing aids on Thursday with everyone. There were thousands of colors and designs to choose from. We figured no leopard print until she was over 10. Just saying...

During this holiday season, give your children and loved one an extra squeeze and enjoy time with your families and loved ones. Consider yourselves all hugged from the Lum family.