Life has sure given us some pretty unusual and neat experiences along the way. The latest brought us to a photo shoot in Utah with some members of the Osmond family. It was lots of fun and a great memory for our whole family.
So, how in the world did we get to this point? Well, back at Christmas time Grandpa Utah got an invite to hear Sean Osmond (nephew to Donny and Marie, son of Merrill Osmond) speak about hearing loss at a luncheon. He wasn't able to attend, but asked if I might like to go in his place. I have known for several years now that the Osmond family had two deaf sons and I have read some about them. It is of course fascinating to think what it must have been like to have been the 2 deaf brothers of the super famous MUSICAL Osmond family. I love that that the story goes that one of the reasons that the Osmond kids started performing in the first place was to raise money to be able to buy hearing aids for their brothers.
So, I found myself at this lunch where the average age was about 70, but it didn't phase me as I really enjoyed getting to hear him speak. Afterward, I had the opportunity to go up and introduce myself and I had a nice conversation and shared about Rori. Sean's brother, Justin, was also born deaf so Sean is very knowledgeable and asked me lots of great questions about Rori. At the end of our conversation he asked me if by chance Rori was going to be needing new hearing aids any time in the near future. At the time we were actually working really hard with the audiologist at the School for the Deaf and she was strongly recommending that we start saving our $ to buy Rori a new pair that would have this high frequency sound recovery technology. These cost big bucks, but are designed for hearing loss like Rori's so it was of course something we wanted to get her to as soon as possible. So, I told him "actually yes" and he encouraged me to fill out an application for the Olive Osmond Hearing Fund.
I went home and worked with Lance on the application over the next few weeks and we also read his brother
Justin Osmond's autobiography titled
"Hearing With My Heart" which we really enjoyed. Among other things Justin has an MBA, is a motivational speaker, is a sterling scholar in MUSIC, plays 4 instruments, was recently married, and was a star athlete. And as I mentioned before he also happens to have been born with 90% hearing loss. It was neat for us to get a glimpse about what it must be like for Rori through his now adult perspective. Months passed and we didn't hear anything on the application so we figured that was that. Then, one afternoon out of the blue about a month ago I got a call from them saying that Rori had indeed been selected. Hooray!!! I immediately started crying on the phone as the sweet lady explained that we could pick out whatever hearing aids we wanted. I'm quite sure she thought I had lost my mind. I was so emotional because I knew that this meant that we could pick out the very best hearing aids for Rori's type of hearing loss- we selected
Phonax SkyQ. In all that we have been through with Rori this really was a dream come true.
Over the next two weeks the foundation worked with Rori's audiologist and we got to go in and have Rori look at the book and pick just what she wanted color wise- pink hearing aids and clear with purple sparkles ear molds! Our number one priority was the technology, but how fun for her to get to pick fun colors that make her even more excited about them. These pediatric hearing aids also have the technology to have her teachers voice sent directly in to the hearing aid in kindergarten next year Then we waited just a couple more weeks and it was time to head back to the audiologist office to pick them up. Hello Christmas in May!
Here are our pictures from that day. Can you tell how excited she was? Two ladies from the foundation were there to meet us and document Rori seeing them for the first time. They asked us that day if we would be willing to come attend a photo shoot and meet and greet with Justin a few weeks later. We told them that we were honestly so grateful that we would do anything they liked. :)
So, that is how we ended up at a photo shoot with some members of the Osmond family. Justin was so nice and even more incredible in person. He is such an inspiration for parents like us to see of young hearing impaired children. A handful of kids and adults that have received hearing aids from them participated that day so it was great to get to chat with those families in the green room as well. Another member of the Osmond family, Jason Osmond, has written a song for the foundation so Rori got to dance and play instruments with him as he performed the song for the cameras. She loved that! The rest of our family was also interviewed about our experience. It was a fun day and a really cool experience.
We are so grateful to the Olive Osmond Hearing Fund. We feel strongly that no child should go without the hearings aids that they so desperately need. Hearing aids are so complicated and difficult to get set just right that it really does take a village. We hope that there will come a day when insurance companies will be mandated to provide coverage for hearing aids for kids. Thank goodness for amazing people like this that are giving the gift of sound in the meantime. Our family is extremely grateful and honored to now be part of the Olive Osmond Hearing Fund family.
