Yellow Yum

My youngest daughter, Cali Nicola “Nia” Tan was born with bilateral hearing loss. She is 14 months old with profound hearing loss on her right ear and moderate severe hearing loss on her left ear.

With her condition, my family and I have been very grateful and humbled that our good Lord has guided us in helping provide the best care we can for her. And Nia, just like any other baby, is curious. I teach her and her twin brother different sounds and words, but because of her hearing disability, it takes her longer to understand things. She is currently experiencing delay in her speaking and listening skills.

I can see it on her face sometimes. She wants to understand us, but she cannot hear me well. I don’t know if she knows what my voice actually sounds like because I know that she does not hear me clearly. But I know my baby is a fighter, so my family and I will always go to great lengths to provide what she needs. Because of the extent of her hearing loss, Cochlear Implant is what is recommended for her. The Cochlear Implant surgery is time bound and doing it as soon as possible is crucial for a higher success rate of her speaking normally. Her doctors recommend proceeding with the surgery early this year. Her audiologist stressed the importance of early intervention in order for her to be able to develop speech.

I have three kids; my eldest is 8 years old and then the twins. Having the twins back in 2019 was a happy unexpected surprise. And because of this, it has already been financially more than what we were expecting as a family. Coupled with Nia’s medical challenges, some unforeseen business difficulties and this grueling pandemic, our financials have become very unstable.

Nia currently has hearing aids, but because of the range of her hearing loss, they are not enough. I know we need to move forward for her future and I don’t want my baby to suffer. Her doctors, audiologists, and therapist all agree that the Cochlear Implant is the best chance Nia has got to hear better and hopefully speak one day. The time-bound procedure, hospitalization, implant device, professional fees, mapping, therapy and hearing aid for the other ear will cost us about Php 2,000,000. See, therapy and mapping does not end after getting implanted. It’s a continuous thing.

Auditory Verbal Therapy= P1,800-2,000 per session and sessions vary from 2x-4x a month.

Mapping= P2,000 done every month

Additional tests= P1,200 up These tests will be needed to ensure that the implant is working properly, the same goes with her hearing aids.

Changing of ear moulds= P18,000/year because Nia’s ear is still growing, we have to change ear moulds every 2 months.

2020 was a tough year for all of us, but we will stay resilient for Nia. Our dream is for her to be able to talk to us, talk to her siblings. I want her to experience everything this world has to offer: going to school, to university, talking to friends, listening to music, and being whoever she wants to be.

In behalf of my family, I humbly ask for prayers. We know that God will hear our prayers and help us in times like this. If you would also like to extend assistance, we thank you so much in advance. Any amount, big or small, is greatly appreciated. We never expected any of this to happen, so we have faith, work hard and we hold on to God and pray that Nia gets the chance she deserves.

You may reach me thru my email charlenelutan@gmail.com at any convenient time.

Below are direct accounts for donations for Nia's surgery:

BDO Savings 007260023306 - Oliver Tan
BPI Savings 1640002537 - Oliver Tan
Metrobank 5043504503039 – Oliver Tan
GCash 0922-8242758 Lim Charlene Frances Ann T.

We also have Fund Raising Platforms for International donations:

GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-nias-journey-to-hearing-speech-calears

GoGetFunding: https://gogetfunding.com/calears-nia/

Subscribe to my Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/YellowYum
Like my Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/YellowYum
Follow me on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/yellowyum

Since June 2020, Nia has been doing Auditory Verbal Therapy or AVT for her hearing loss. It’s a way to help her listen since we don’t know what exactly she hears. We are doing Tele-AVT because of the pandemic. The therapist is on the other end teaching me what to do and coaching us. We started doing it once a week. I would have a meeting prior to therapy with the therapist to show me our therapy plan, what we will be doing, how we will be incorporating these into play and activities. It's tiring, it really is. It takes so much out of me but we do it. I do it, for her, for Nia. After a few months, we cut down therapy to every other week. We might do it once a week again after cochlear implant surgery. Her therapy, honestly, cost an arm and a leg. :( But if it is helping my daughter listen, hear and understand us, I know it's worth it. We just try to work harder to be able to pay for the sessions.

She’s also been wearing her hearing aids pretty much every waking hour. It’s still a struggle to put it on at times, but we still do it because we know she needs it. Is her AVT working? I honestly can't say. I feel and see that there's progress and perhaps that's because of the things we do that we learned from therapy. We encourage and engage with her babbling. We try to let her listen to music and learn to move and groove as she hears the sounds. These are just some lessons we learned from her therapy, that hopefully will help her learn to listen.

Accepting her disability is not an overnight thing. It’s a process, one that I’m still on. It broke me so much and I’m still not fully healed yet. But God has been with us in this journey. He has shown us that even with her disability, she’s our Nia. She’s the sweet, jolly, cheerful, smart girl. Her smile melts all of your problems and worries away. God has shown us that with modern technology, she hears us.

It’s still a long way from here. I know I’ll still have those pockets of moments that I will break down, cry and ask why. I know I will still wish that things were different. That this didn’t happen to us, to my child. But I find comfort in seeing her progress. I find comfort in seeing her respond when I call her. And most of all, I find comfort in God’s plan. I know He will provide. I trust He will not forsake us.

Where are we we now? We are now looking at Cochlear Implant for her. Her Papa and I, both trying to work hard and save as much as we can for her upcoming surgery and ongoing therapy. I’ve been researching high and low where we can get financial assistance to help us out because CI is very expensive. Nevertheless, we have already started with the requirements for the surgery. I'm also starting to prepare documents we can use for financial aid

This poem was exactly what I needed to accept my daughter's condition.

I hope that if you are in the same boat as I, that this too will help you.

More than anything, I have to remind myself of Pride. Our baby has to work twice as hard to hear and listen to things that others take for granted. It is a long road ahead but we are hopeful and keeping the faith that God will provide and be with us every step of the way.

Subscribe to my Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/YellowYum
Like my Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/YellowYum
Follow me on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/yellowyum

An exciting project with the help of my sisters. We've been planning and brainstorming how we'd decorate our place for Niko and Nia's birthday. My sister Dane, drew how it would look like, how it's supposed to at least. Hehe! And we also wanted to make another corner for my mom because it's also her birthday.

We started decorating the house a day before the party. It took almost 9 hours to finish. We started at 4:30pm and ended 1am. Haha! We decorated 4 parts of the house. Here's how they look.

First is the main setup which is the Babies' Birthday Corner. This is where we'd be taking most of our photos so we knew we needed to make this very nice. We put up balloons, banners, foil curtains as backdrop. I also bought a "1" balloon which we also used during their photo shoot. For the dessert table, we simply put tassels and put all the sweets on top.

We were very specific with the cake maker because we wanted the bears to truly look like We Bare Bears. Hehe! I found Oh My Cakes PH (ohmycakes.ph on IG) and saw that they were able to make a similar cake before. I researched different cake designs and sent it to them with my edits and revisions and we came up with this super cute cake. I also asked them to make these We Bare Bears cupcakes too. My sister, Dane, gifted all these for Niko and Nia. Thanks Sa-e! :) We also have some pastries and cookies, so we decorated them with the We Bare Bears toppers that I got online.

Next is the Buffet Area. We didn't put a lot of decor here to be honest. First because we knew we will be using this space for the food. We ordered some and my family brought some too. So we kept the decoration simple. We put some of the We Bare Bears items that we have on the ledge and made use of other home decor that I already have.

Third is behind Niko and Nia's chairs. This was just an additional look that we did. We have extra balloons not being used and we still have the fans (same fans we used during the photo shoot). So we decided to put it behind the babies' chairs. This is their spot in the dining area so we knew there'll be a few snaps so this was the perfect spot for this design.

Lastly, my Mom's Corner. It was also my mom's birthday so I bought her her own balloons too! We decided on a Rose Gold theme since my mom likes pink. I saw this pack that has different balloons of the same color family. I also got her name in Rose Gold too. She liked it! I hope she got surprised too. :)

My sister also commissioned a birthday cake for my mom. Here she is with her two beloved pets, Poochi and Kobe.

Thank you to my sisters, Dane and Li for the labor of love! They helped me create this masterpiece. Yessss naman! Haha! And of course, Happy Birthday to our celebrants.

Subscribe to my Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/YellowYum
Like my Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/YellowYum
Follow me on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/yellowyum

Here's our DIY Pre-Bday photo shoot for Niko and Nia. It was a team effort as we made all the layouts ourselves. My sister helped me design the setups and we were able to shoot 4 different layouts all in the comfort and safety of our own home. It was quite a day so let me show you some of the outputs.

The photos were taken by Oh Shoot Studios PH. Because it's still the pandemic, it was more convenient to do the shoot at home. Ms. Mavs of Oh Shoot Studios PH visited the house the day of the shoot.

When I discussed with Ms. Mavs, I told her about the 4 layouts I was hoping to do. I wasn't sure if we'd be able to do everything, because obviously the twins will be restless.

First layout was our Family Christmas Shoot. I've always dreamt of having family Christmas shoots. See, I print family photos to put in our Christmas tree. This year is definitely more special because we're complete, us 5.

Few weeks before the shoot, I already prepared all our clothes- the clothes we will be using for each layout. It was tricky because my babies, especially Niko, don't have much clothes. I obviously can't bring them out to buy and fit clothes. Nia has her Achi's clothes, but Niko, that's a different story. Good thing my friends handed down some clothes for him. And we just ordered some clothes online.

The babies were obviously still shy, didn't want to smile. Robyn, on the other hand, was more "game".

Next layout was Nautical Bare Bears. My sister also made paper boats as decoration for this layout. She even taught Robyn how to make so Achi also helped make so it became an even more special activity.

Little trivia, we used Robyn's bed frame as their raft.

So tricky to put on Nia's headband. It's been months since she wore one, so we had a difficult time convincing her to wear for the shoot.

Here's the We Bare Bears stuffed toys that I purchased online for their birthday.

Third layout was the Camper layout. By this time, Niko was already cranky. He hasn't taken a nap the entire afternoon. I tried, I did. However, he really didn't want to. And of course, when we started the photo shoot, it was continuous.

Also purchased this board online. We found this nice saying, perfect for my little babies.

Took a few more family photos during this layout. But seriously the babies were not having it anymore. Haha!

So bahala sila, here's the "Original" family instead. Haha!

So while changing outfits and preparing for the next layout, Ms. Mavs took more photos of my eldest, Robyn. And I loved all her photos! My baby is now a lady!

For the final layout, I call this the Little Miss and Mister. It was a play on the fact that I have boy girl twins. This was probably the hardest to find outfits because it was very specific. But I'm so glad we pulled it off.

Niko was not happy anymore during this layout. It's been hours since his supposed nap time. It was so difficult to choose photos because he really was so cranky, so we ended up redoing the shoot and just DIYing it ourselves. So some photos from this layout were taken by yours truly.

I purchased the name banners, tassels and the 1 balloon. We were going to use it for their birthday celebration and decided to also use them for this layout.

Still feeling lucky that I got boy girl twins. It was such a huge surprise that I was pregnant with twins, and to have both genders was an added blessing for sure.

It's so surreal that my babies are already 1. I still remember, during the days that I was just plain exhausted and dead tired caring for the two, how I would pray for the time that they turn 1. And now, here we are. :)

Subscribe to my Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/YellowYum
Like my Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/YellowYum
Follow me on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/yellowyum

Beauty

Motherhood

Home

Travel

Food

#CalEars
Hearing Loss

ABOUT ME

SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW

Help Nia's Hearing & Speech Journey

DISCLAIMER

Search This Blog

Advertisement

More about the writer

Work WIth Me

Youtube Channel