The trip to BAHA. . . .

We have arrived, at long last, in the land of BAHA, Micah's soft-band, bone-oscillating hearing aid. Two weeks short of four months home.

Last night, Micah had a horrible night: up several times at midnight, 3:00 am, and 5:45 am. I was up late getting stuff organized, a once every few weeks task, so I answered the 3:00 am wail, changed him and after not getting him on his way back to sleep, I just threw him in bed between me and Thea, figuring he'd either fall asleep or get smothered by one of us, and at that point, either was a viable option in my book. Only to be woken at 5:45 by the sensation of a twenty-plus pound someone crawling around on my side of the bed. Steve drew that one, and finally resorted to putting him in his crib and letting him voice his annoyance for a half hour. Our day was not off to a good start.

After taking Thea to school, Micah and I went to the post office and then raced home to be back in time for Ela, Micah's teacher from Summit School who comes to the house 10:00 am to 12 noon every Wednesday. He always seems to enjoy her activities, but started flaking out around 11:15 or so. Right after Ela left he had a bottle and took a two-hour nap.

JFK's Audiology Department confirmed our appointment yesterday, so I took that as a positive sign that the BAHA that the audiologist had ordered for Micah had arrived from Cochlear (which is located in Colorado). Micah had a good time in the waiting area, playing with his firetruck and rearranging furniture; he made friends with a gentleman who had a family member who adopted from China, so that helped kill some time explaining microtia/atresia to him and that Micah was a boy. (He was a nice man, but he also had the overly simplistic view of adoption from China: "they don't want girls there, right?" Fortunately Dr. Toth came out to get us before having to get too deep into that whole discussion.)

For the technically un-savvy (me), the BAHA seems surprisingly easy to use. There is an elastic band with Velcro, and on the band is a plastic square that the digital sound amplifier snaps onto. This has to be seated on any of Micah's skull bones; we tried out the mastoid bone (behind the ear) and his temple. When it was first put on and turned on, my boy was not happy and wailed for a few minutes - and it was definitely not the actual headband that was bothering him, it was the sounds he was hearing. After several minutes of displeasure, he settled down and didn't bother with the headband or the processor. Which is good, because it costs $3,000, so imagine what it's like strapping a tiny piece of equipment, about the size of your thumb from the knuckle to the tip, onto a toddler's head and saying, "Go forth, play."

It does have a tiny lanyard that goes through the unit with a clip that can be attached to the neck of Micah's shirt. Even though I'm not really worried about it in the house or in the car, we're using it for now because it may give us the three or four seconds needed to save it from going in the toilet or bathtub. On children older than age four or so, this device is snapped onto a pin that is implanted in the bone behind the ear area. Surgery to implant the pins isn't done on younger children because the bone isn't strong enough, hence the softband holding it onto the child's head.

I'll post pictures later, he looks a little like a hippie or a pirate. After getting home tonight, the most I could manage was getting cleaned up after dinner and getting Thea off to bed. I am happy that the biggest item on our Micah to-do list is checked off. We have to go back to JFK on the 19th for testing in the sound booth - for now we're rotating locations on his head to see where he seems to get the best reception. Testing in the sound booth will check on this.

My only (minor) worries now are that people will think that he's a girl because of the headband or that they will talk to him in that "I must speak slowly because he's mentally impaired" voice. This child is sharp as a tack. I need to get a couple of t-shirts made up for him: I AM NOT A GIRL, and if you don't believe me, feel free to change my diaper, and I HAVE A HEARING IMPAIRMENT, my IQ is probably higher than yours.