HankStrong
Male / 7 years & 9 months
Share the first part of HankStrong's story for readers on Sleuth! When and why did you start to feel concerned?
Hank was born in 2015. The (facebook) world was waiting as family and friends literally across the globe watched for the first picture. His birth was uneventful. Great APGARs and no problems. Our real story starts in August of 2015. Hank had failed his newborn hearing tests and his Audiology referrals had failed too. We had an ABR done and determined that Hank had total hearing loss in his left ear. She was really concerned because he had a small head and we had no family history of hearing loss.
Zuzu
Female / 6 years
Share the first part of Zuzu's story for readers on Sleuth! When and why did you start to feel concerned?
I distinctly remember leaving a message for my pediatrician after Zuzu's 8 month appointment because I had forgotten to mention that she wasn't babbling. She's my second child so I knew that the expression of noise was very different than babbling. My pediatrician said to "wait and see" and that maybe her bilingual environment contributed to some form of 'normal delay.' I took her advice and kept an eye on it. I got most concerned when Zuzu was 15 months old. A family member wondered why her face was asymmetrical and that tipped me over to decide to go to a neurologist. I was already aware - and concerned - that she was behind with walking and talking, and this seemed like yet another issue (incidentally, I didn't notice the asymmetry myself!) To be honest, I had somehow convinced myself that she probably had an issue but that the issue wasn't serious. After all, there are a thousand reasons why a child would be talking late and I figured it was mild. My mind didn't put all the symptoms together b/c I guess I was in denial about the bigger picture - it's hard to see that there's something wrong with your child. Eventually, by 18 months, I finally 'saw' that all these small concerns might actually add up to something more important that I had been missing.
microcephaly diagnosed at 3 years & 1 month