Aiding Aria

06/09/2024

This girl amazes me every day. Kara put the implants on one by one, activated each individually and then put them on at the same time. Aria didn’t flinch and spent probably around an hour after, didn’t touch the implants, moan or complain once. Another good sign💕 only when we got in the car and one knocked off she decided she was too tired to have them on and then passed out in her car seat🦋I’m currently waiting very impatiently for her to wake up so we can put them back on 🦻

06/09/2024

Aria did absolutely amazing she wasn’t scared or overwhelmed. It almost seems anticlamatic because you would expect her to cry, maybe smiles, and your immediate reaction is for her to respond to voices. Unfortunately it’s a bit more complicated than that, she was super calm which means she was not overwhelmed or scared at all probably from the little she could hear with the hearing aids. Aria needs to learn what to do with sound now and what sound is for. Think of her ears as a new born babies, they only really start responding to noises at 3 months so that’s actually when we will see major differences in her responses. For now she is hearing everything all at once all backround noises and static and mumbles really. That’s why when it’s quiet she responded to the knocking it was a very distinct sound. This has made us so happy though and we can’t wait to watch her develop and grow every single day.

05/09/2024

Tomorrow is activation day.

Incase you didn’t want to watch the video here is a summary picture 💕

05/09/2024

I have tried to explain this so many times, I’ve watched this video so many times and I still do not understand how our body works and how amazing hearing actually is.

Discover how cochlear implants work. Cochlear implants can help restore hearing to people with severe-to-profound hearing loss. With this type of hearing los...

29/07/2024

Aria got her very own cochlear bear , comes complete with his own implants 😂❤️💕

29/07/2024

17/07/2024

MRI and CT done 🙏❤️

16/07/2024

https://www.backabuddy.co.za/campaign/aiding-aria

Hi, I am Meghan, mom of 3 beautiful children. This story is about the littlest light of our family - our first and only little girl, Aria! Aria is o...

08/07/2024

Dear Friends, Family and supportive strangers following our journey.

I hope you are all doing super well. After a 3 week long ordeal with Aria’s brother being in hospital due to a burst appendix and subsequent sepsis, I have finally found sometime to provide you with an update.

Aria was fitted with her left hearing aid a few weeks ago, unfortunately shortly there after it was established that the hearing in her left ear had deteriorated since we started this process and hearing with the assistance of a hearing aid would not be possible. As a result our only option is now to do implants in both ears.

Aria has been booked in and approved to have her surgery for bilateral implants on the 26th July 2024. As exciting as this is, to offer her a life filled with sound, laughter, music, and the voices of loved ones, it is daunting and stressful to say the least, also considering what we have just been through with Layton who is still recovering.

As you all know the costs of Aria’s surgery and subsequent therapies is substantial. We had been planning a fund raiser or two but unfortunately had no clue that she would be booked in for surgery so quickly. While we are doing everything we can to cover these expenses, we humbly ask for your support during this critical time. Your donation, no matter the size, will make a meaningful difference in Aria’s journey toward hearing.

To donate you can visit the link below or pop me a message for further details.

Hi, I am Meghan, mom of 3 beautiful children. This story is about the littlest light of our family - our first and only little girl, Aria! Aria is o...

11/06/2024

Here is a bit of insight on what we did at speech therapy on Saturday.

Our speech therapist tested the Ling sounds with Aria… what are these?

Ling sounds are different sounds from low to high pitch. You can use them to check that your child is hearing the range of speech sounds needed to learn language.

These are the 6 ling sounds, of which it seems Aria can only hear 2 in her left ear with the hearing aid:

*m* eg: man
*oo* eg food
*ee* eg Bee
*ah* eg Car
*sh* eg fish
*s* eg Sea

For this next week until Saturday we are going to be doing a lot of these sounds in the hopes that Aria might develop recognition to them. We are desperately hoping that the verdict is in fact that she can recognise them with the hearing aid otherwise we are back on the path of bilateral cochlear implants 🦻

We have also been told to try and get her to learn how to blow with the aid of bubbles which at the moment she copies with a duck face 😂it’s too cute❤️

Also trying to get her to make a car sound with her lips. 🚗

03/06/2024

Aria will be fitted with a hearing aid in her left ear very soon possible this week or next, here is what it will look like and some of the features…

- Priority in speech understanding with SmartSpeech Technology

- Tamper-proof ear-hooks and battery door

- Indicator lights for caregivers to see hearing aids status (e.g., low battery)

- Water and dust resistant (IP68)

- Dedicated app: myPhonak Junior

- Connects to smartphones, TV, Roger microphones and more

- Universal Bluetooth® connectivity

- 14 HI colors and 7 hook colors create 98 potential color combinations

Keeping her demo hearing aids in lately has proved rather difficult but what we try not to make it a horrible experience and allow her to have them off as often as she needs to.

We don’t know if the noise becomes overwhelming or, if in the right ear especially, the use of a hearing aid is doing nothing.

The days where she leaves them in that’s a bonus and on the days where she refuses we let her be.

Did you know that only 6000 children are born profoundly deaf in South Africa (no wonder this journey is testing us) 😂

01/06/2024