Alyssa went to an Audiology appt. yesterday to have her hearing checked. This was the one appt. that I thought we would walk into and pass with flying colors. That wasn't our luck though. Come to find our... Alyssa as slight hearing loss in both ears. At this point, she is unable to hear high pitch sounds at all...planes, birds chirping, etc... They don't know yet if this is anatomical, which means she was born like this and it won't progress...hopefully. But it looks more like this is a result of ottotoxic (sp?) medications that she has been given. Those are meds that are toxic to the ears. And come to find out...everytime she has had surgery on her head, they have given her vancomyocin to prevent infections and it causes hearing loss. She is actually allergic to this medication so she is given benedryll along with it. We have known of this allergy since day one, but the "myocin" drugs are the best at fighting infection following surgeries of the head so they "HAVE" to be given. It is a no-win situation.

SOOOO... because of there not being alternative meds...with every surgery she has from here on...it can worsen her hearing loss. AND...you all know that she may have that repeat surgery coming up. We go see the plastic surgeon and NS next Wed. about that. So there is nothing I can do about this. We go back in 3 months (her birthday to be exact) to have her hearing checked again. And this will be done regularly. She doesn't need hearing aids now UNLESS it progresses on it's own or is due to every surgery from here on out.

Can you believe this c**p? It would have been nice to have been told that the meds they were giving caused hearing loss. I wonder how many others have been affected by this and not known how.