Shannon - my story as a mum
Shannon's youngest son was diagnosed at birth with mild to moderate bilateral sensor neural hearing loss and he was aided at 3 months old.
Hi I'm Shannon.
My youngest son was diagnosed at birth with mild to moderate bilateral sensor neural hearing loss. And he was aided at 3 months old.
It was a shock
When he was first diagnosed it was definitely a shock as we had no one else in the family with hearing loss nor did we know anyone with kids with hearing loss. No one really understood what we were going through. Trying to get ourselves set up with everything we need and all the information, appointments it became very overwhelming. We felt confused and very much alone.
Having someone to talk to who had been there
Then we reached out to the parent mentor program. It was so nice to have someone to talk to that understood what we were going through and how we felt. Someone that understood the processes and terminology. They are there for you to ask questions or even just to talk about how you are feeling. You never feel alone when you have a mentor. We might not speak to our mentor all the time but we have confidence knowing that they are always there for us and are a text or phone call away. They also organise events which are fantastic to meet other families who have children with hearing loss.
Hearing from other families
It's great to hear about other families' trials and triumphs as well as getting ideas on how we can help our own child. You not only get a mentor but you get to be apart of a little community to support each other as well.
