Hope for a broken ear

Maia verbalizes to herself while she's playing. Recently, Kristina told me that she had been pretend playing with classmates and had said, "I have one broken ear. And I have one ear that's not broken."

We got good news from an audiologist on Saturday about her left ear. The left one is the one that's missing.

To test her left ear, they used some sort of device that drove the sound (or vibrations) in to her cochlea from a point on the left side of her skull. They had to do that since there's no ear canal there, just a smooth spot where one should have formed.




She could "hear" everything that they tested her on. Her right and left cochleas are both in excellent condition. The only problem with the left side is getting the sound from the outside to her inner ear.



"Only" is an understatement. The middle ear, as we've learned, is this remarkable, miniaturized amplification system that transfers sound down a canal and through the action of three tiny bones--the malleus, incus and staples--to the cochlea. If Maia doesn't have a middle ear at all--which appears to be the case--then to get the sound in, a hole would have to be drilled through the bone there and some kind of mechanical replacement for the three bones would probably need to be installed.

But the news about the cochlea was great to hear. Even if she has no middle ear, evidently there is some kind of procedure for doing the work that would need to be done to get the sound to the cochlea. That means that she could hear from that side some day.



You've been looking at pics of Maia and the orphanage from the 2nd and 3rd of May, 2004. The rest are all from May 3rd.

For the May 3rd visit, we had asked to see Maia with other children in her cohort. We had wanted to get an idea of how she related to others. We were treated to an orchestrated "play session," in a little play area that included a carousel and some swings. From the looks of the play area, it wasn't normally used much.



We had asked if we could help this boy, but the Director of the orphanage turned our inquiry away. I'm not sure why.



This little girl was older than the rest. She seemed to have difficulty relating in a positive emotional way to others. It wasn't that she was angry or aggressive. She just seeemed to be missing some quality of normal affect.



So cute, the children.





The adults seemed genuinely to like and care about the children. I think they probably did as well as they could with what they had.



This is Maia, saying goodbye at the end of our visit. That's the Director of the orphanage behind her. It was called Shymkint Baby House.



The other day at dinner, Maia was pretend playing again. This time it involved a police car. She pretended that we had found a police man "to fix my ear."

After the visit on Saturday, I told her, as well as I could, that her ear inside her head was perfect and that we would see if we could find someone to fix the outside part and the middle part.

"Tomorrow?" she had wanted to know.

"No, not tomorrow. But soon."

John, Monday morning, July 3, 2006.