About the Founder

My daughter, Ally, giving me a kiss on my cheek for Mother’s Day, 2011.

Hello Everyone,

My name is Melissa Tumblin. I am not a medical doctor nor am I a psychologist, but I am a mother of a child who was born without her right ear who has hearing loss. I am a stay at home mom who is married to my best friend, Brent, and I have two very happy little girls, Hailey and Ally. Ally was born with Microtia and Aural Atresia of her right ear. Because of advocating for Ally, I have learned about hearing loss, school programs, and surgical options more than I ever imagined I would. For these reasons and my passion for helping others, I wish to share what I have learned with everyone. I have been asked to speak at events and small gatherings. I have served as a Board of Director Member for the Hands & Voices Organization and as a member of the Parent Advocacy Board/Council for Children’s Hospital Colorado. My family and I live in Colorado, USA. I have over ten years of medical/surgical device marketing experience and I continue to work part time as a medical device marketing consultant. My career has taught me to be an advocate for the products that I market and for the companies that I have marketed for. Now, that I am a mother, I find myself being an advocate for my daughters, especially for my Ally. I received my Bachelors degree in Psychology/Biology (EPOB, geared toward premed) from the University of Colorado at Boulder and I love what I do.

Melissa Tumblin, Founder of Ear Community

I would like to share with you why I created EarCommunity.org and the Microtia and Atresia Support Group on Facebook. My family struggled to find the answers we were looking for when my daughter, Ally, was born. For this reason, I wanted to share the information and research I discovered with other families, hoping to make things easier for the next family who has a child born with microtia and atresia. In addition, I wanted to help promote education, awareness, and advocacy by shining a light on our rare cause. I wanted to help families and individuals learn more about hearing loss and how to better understand the affects hearing loss can have on individuals and their lives. I also wanted to help families connect with each other so they can share experiences with one another and never feel alone with microtia and atresia.  It is very important to realize that none of us are alone because we all have each other now. One of my main goals for both sites is to help promote parent, self, and patient advocacy. I believe in doing your research and learning as much as you can so you can be well informed about the choices that can help you make the best decisions. One of the worst feelings is realizing later on that you were not informed of “all” your options and being left to wonder if things could have been different somehow, if you had only known about another choice. While at the same time, it is very important to help update our medical professionals regarding what you have learned about Microtia and Atresia since our cause is fairly rare.  New information can often help our doctors and audiologists learn how to help us better. And so, I created our support group(s) and our organization’s website so they may help educate as many people as possible, including everything else that goes along with Microtia and Atresia and hearing loss. Our support group can help support individuals and families emotionally as well. Please remember to do your research, ask questions, and remember that you have the right to know what “all” of your options are. When someone is not informed of all their options, they may be missing out on what might have been the best choice or decision for them or a loved one. I hope as our support group and organization continue to grow, the information posted will help make it easier for families and individuals to make the best choices and decisions for their loved ones. Before Ear Community was Founded, a community for our rare cause was not available to our families. Today, we have a community that offers a sense of belongingness, acceptance and inclusivity for our children and adults.

Ear Community’s support group(s) are warm and caring places that I hope everyone feels comfortable coming to. I do hope our support group(s) help all of us to grow in many ways, even if it helps to make us a little bit more open minded and accepting of more people on our earth. Thank you for being a part of our community!

* Update: The Microtia and Atresia Support Group and the Ear Community Organization turned 14 years old on May 20th, 2024. The Ear Community Organization is a leading resource for microtia and aural atresia and has paved the way for families and medical professionals around the world. Our organization collaborates with many organizations including the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA), Hearing Health Foundation (HHF), American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), the Educational Audiology Association (EAA), Early Hearing Detection Intervention Organization (EHDI), AudiologyOnline (AO), Continued.com and the National Institute for Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR)/American Association for Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Research (AADOC) just to name a few.

Our organization collaborated on a 5 year grant on whole genome sequencing research with Harvard, Vanderbilt and MIT through the Broad Institute working to find answers regarding genetic research and the cause behind microtia. Thanks to this research, Ear Community and our collaborators discovered new findings on chromosome 3 (FOXI3) where there is an increased risk of causing microtia and craniofacial microsomia. Since 2022, three papers have been published on our research. Ear Community also collaborates with The CARE Study Team at Seattle Children’s Hospital’s craniofacial department and the Centre for Appearance Research, based at the University of the West of England, Bristol in the UK on the psychological journey of the caregiver in hopes of making the caregiver experience easier for families with our cause in the years to come.  We have helped collaborate on research for unilateral hearing loss (UHL) and have made a lot of presentations over the years. Our organization has Federal legislation introduced, known as Ally’s Act (named after my daughter, Ally), that would ensure private insurers cover bone conduction hearing devices and cochlear implants, no longer denying them and to consistently cover them in all states. In 206, our Organization established National Microtia and Atresia Awareness Day taking place every November 9th and is embraced by families, schools, hearing loss organizations, teachers of the D/HH, therapists, government officials and medical professionals all over the world. Ear Community is proud to be behind the launch of the Vanderbilt Microtia and Atresia clinic in 2016.

Over the past decade, our organization and it’s online support groups have managed to help thousands of Microtia and Atresia families and help update hundreds of medical professionals all over the world. While there were few microtia and atresia clinics around when Ear Community was founded, today, there are many more Microtia and Atresia clinics that have opened over the years and we are grateful for this! Ear Community is proud to collaborate with many of these facilities including Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, NYEE Institute, the California Ear Institute, the House Ear Institute, and many audiology clinics and children’s hospitals. As of 2024, Ear Community has hosted over 120 events all over the US and in many other countries bringing together over 25,000 people. Our organization has donated nearly 200 bone conduction hearing devices to children and adults born with Microtia and Atresia who are in need or who have been denied insurance coverage by the insurance provider and we have awarded 25 college scholarships to date. Ear Community is thankful for all of our families that have helped make us a community. We are also grateful to all of our sponsors over the years (Bone Conduction Hearing, Cochlear Americas, Med-EL, Medtronic, Oticon Medical, Phonak and Stryker). We still have a lot more to give! Most importantly, we are so happy that so many Microtia and Atresia families have learned about all of their options and will never feel alone because they have our community and our organization here for them.

Sincerely,

Melissa Tumblin
Founder of EarCommunity.org and the Microtia and Atresia Support Group