One look at Paras, and nobody will believe that this bubbly naughty 5 ½ year old boy is suffering from hearing impairment. His parents realized this problem only when Paras turned three. They tried every possible doctor and went to hospitals from Amritsar to Chandigarh and as far as Bombay. But the biggest challenge was arranging funds.
In May 2017, they got in touch with Dr. Sumit Mrig ( Senior Consultant & HOD – ENT, Max Smart Hospital, Saket) who immediately assessed the criticality of the case. He knew that every minute was precious and without any delay approached Max India Foundation for help. Through our timely intervention, the complicated surgery was successfully done on 17th May. As per Dr. Mrig, “The child probably had meningitis when he was 6 months old which led to hearing loss and his parents never came to know about it until he was 3 years old.” The biggest challenge was age of the patient, he was non hearing aid user, never had any speech therapy and he was a case of post meningitis. The right cochlea was completely ossified and the left one had 30% ossification. Drill out procedure was done in left cochlea and intraop of the implant functioning was checked.
Inspite of all odds, there is a very high probability of Paras regaining normal hearing ability with aggressive speech therapy for at least 2 years. As Dr. Mrig says, “Paras is a very active child, if his parents and the therapist do good work the results will undoubtedly be very good.”
With MIF support, the cochlear machine was switched on 31st May and Paras immediately responded to the stimuli. On this good note we wish all the very best to Paras and his family.
