For the first time, an eight-year-old local girl recently had a two-hour phone conversation with her grandparents that live across the country.
She could finally hear them.
Karensa Gauthier was diagnosed as hard of hearing at birth but now has hearing aids, receivers and a telephone that were provided to her by Variety, the Children's Charity.
Variety, which will host its 51st annual Show of Hearts Telethon on Sunday on Global, provides assistance to B.C. children with special needs.
Before leaving the hospital where she was born, Karensa failed the hearing test that is part of routine testing.
Karensa's mom, Tara Gauthier, was told not to worry too much about it because it was noisy and to follow up with further testing.
"Six weeks later, she was diagnosed as having bilateral sensorineural hearing loss," said Gauthier.
The diagnosis forced the whole family to change.
Instead of thoroughly enjoying life with a newborn girl, dad Jeremy, big brother Nathan, and Gauthier were regular visitors to the hospital, picking out pink hearing aids and having weekly impressions made of Karensa's quickly growing ears.
"As Karensa was still quite young, someone was always close enough to her to try and keep the hearing aids in her ears and out of her mouth," said Gauthier.
During that time, Karensa was referred to a speech therapist and an ear, nose and throat specialist.
Weekly trips to the speech therapist helped the baby develop language and train her to recognize sounds.
The whole family learned sign language to encourage communication with Karensa.
When a CAT scan at about five months old showed Karensa had an enlarged inner ear, the family was warned that head trauma or pressure could result in further hearing loss.
"It was another difficult time as we had to come to terms with the information that she could lose further hearing gradually, all of a sudden and eventually could completely lose her hearing," said Gauthier.
Karensa's hearing seemed to be stable until she reached three years old.
It was noted that her speech was not at the level it should be.
Another hearing test confirmed further hearing loss and it was deemed the hearing aids she had were not the best technology to help her.
When Karensa's audiology team provided a pair of hearing aids so she could hear higher sound frequencies, the progress she made was amazing, said Gauthier.
"Within a couple of weeks we heard her clear as day say a complete four-word sentence," said Gauthier.
"We were also able to get more distance between us and Karensa when she was wearing these aids."
Up until then Gauthier could only be about three feet away and with the new hearing aids she could be about 10 feet away and Karensa could still hear her.
"Karensa was also able to verbalize her needs more clearly which reduced frustration for everyone," said Gauthier.
Improvements in technology happens fast in the hearing aid world.
The life span of the hearing aids varies and at times equipment just stops working.
Karensa was outfitted with an FM system that saw her wear receivers on her hearing aids so that when she goes to hip hop dance class or other places where people are further away from her, they can wear a microphone so that she can hear what they are saying from greater distances.
But then the system broke and was beyond repair.
To have the system replaced, Karensa needed new hearing aids because the old ones were not compatible with the new microphone system.
There was also an option to get a special telephone that could connect wirelessly to the new hearing aids.
That was when the family applied to Variety for assistance.
"Variety staff were so easy to work with and the application process was simple," said Gauthier.
"These items have all made a significant difference in Karensa's life and we are always amazed at how the technology improves in just a few years and the impact of getting new equipment has for our daughter. Variety removed the worries we had about how we would afford purchasing equipment that we knew our daughter needed."
Gauthier wants people to know that Variety supports children with many different needs.
"It's not just the big things like wheelchairs," said Gauthier.
"And it's available to anyone in B.C., not just in the Lower Mainland."
The new hearing aids have opened up the world to Karensa on a whole new level.
"Her dad was walking her to school one day and she started to giggle," said Gauthier. "Jeremy asked her what was so funny and she said she could hear his footsteps for the first time."
Karensa appreciates the little things and can now hear her hair swishing around her head.
And the phone is a welcome addition to expand Karensa's world.
Previously, Karensa would only spend maybe a minute chatting on the phone and had a difficult time even figuring out which way to hold it because she could barely hear anything.
"We knew that we had to get this phone to allow her to partake in this simple thing we all take for granted, but without the support of Variety we financially were not able to afford this equipment," said Gauthier.
"Now she happily chats away to family members on the other side of the country."
To support Variety, donations can be made online at variety.bc.ca, toll-free by phone at 310-KIDS, or by texting "KIDS" to 45678 to make an automatic $20 contribution.
