Poplar Bluff student hears loud and clear with help of Miracle-Ear

Learning about 11-year-old Alyson Murphy’s hearing loss shocked her and her mother, Cassandra Hayes.

The Poplar Bluff sixth-grade student has had eight sets of tubes in her ears, but a few weeks ago Murphy received life-changing news when her doctor diagnosed her with significant hearing loss, being almost completely deaf in her left ear.

Murphy and her family are not allowing the fact she is quickly losing the ability to hear the world around her to diminish her hope.

Hayes said, “Nothing has to hold you back. She is going to roll with it.”

The hearing aids will provide a new chapter in the family’s lives. All of Murphy’s family showed up to be a part of her miracle.

Murphy is one of more than 100 people receiving the Miracle-Ear Mission’s free hearing aids and a lifetime of services to ensure they can maintain their hearing aids. Thanks to the foundation, Murphy was fitted for and received new hearing aids all at no cost recently at the Black River Coliseum in Poplar Bluff as part of the Miracle-Ear Foundation’s Miracle Mission.

A similar event also was held at the Kennett Opera House.

Murphy got her hearing aids before school started, so “her brain is going to get used to what you hear with your hearing aid,” said Tom Wright, board-certified hearing instrument specialist. “Everything is different, especially today. There’ll be things that are going to sound totally different. That’s going to be your brain for the next 24 hours because you’re going to be hearing all those new things and your brain is going to be like, what’s this? Why does this sound different? It takes about a year to get used to, but once you do, your brain’s going to get used to how you deal with hearing aids.”

Wright told the family after the first day if certain things sounded too loud, too quiet, or too brassy, scratchy and high-pitched, they should make notes and bring those to the follow-up exam.

“I can look at those notes and make changes on the computer to make things sound more natural,” Wright said. “We want things to be cool. They still need to sound natural. With your hearing loss, there’s probably going to be some things you hear in the first day or two that are going to sound kind of tinny.”

He explained Murphy’s brain might not have registered high frequencies or sounds like keys jingling, change rattling in one’s pocket or a page turning. “These may sound a lot louder than what she’s used to hearing.”

Hayes said the hearing aids will provide a new chapter in the family’s lives. Having to yell at her daughter was tough on the whole family, and she wanted to give her the best life possible. So when Hayes found out about the Miracle-Ear Foundation’s help, she felt a huge sense of relief knowing the inability to hear would not be another obstacle Murphy had to face.

One in eight people in the U.S. ages 12 and over have hearing loss in both ears, information from the foundation stated, and can even affect infants. Hearing loss inhibits a person’s ability to engage with the world.

“Why don’t you guys try talking to her so she can see how well she’s hearing?” Wright asked her parents. To Murphy, he teasingly added, “You know what, the first thing you’re going to hear that you probably haven’t heard in a long time is ‘clean your room.’”

Since its founding in 1990, the Miracle-Ear Foundation, working with Miracle-Ear centers across the country, has donated more than 40,000 hearing aids to more than 21,000 children and adults who could otherwise not afford them. As part of the special event in Southeast Missouri, the Miracle-Ear Foundation will be providing 200 hearing aids to 100 people in need who cannot otherwise afford them.