Four years past, Myles can finally hear better thanks to Ear Community and Oticon Medical

Myles Tankersley, Mobile, Alabama, received Oticon Medical Ponto Plus on September 19th, 2018 through Ear Community.

Meet Myles Tankersley from Moblie, Alabama.  Myles is four years old and was born with Microtia and Atresia of his right ear.  Recently, Myles’ mom, Britney Tankersley, began to question why her son wasn’t speaking as much and noticed that Myles had some delays in his speech.  Since birth, Myles has been to all of the right doctors for check-ups, but no one seemed to show any concern about his hearing loss or mention that unilateral hearing loss may cause some challenges for Myles down the road.  In fact, no one diagnosed her son as having Microtia and Atresia all these years.  Just during the past month (September), Britney and her husband recently discovered that Myles has Microtia and Atresia and that he is struggling to speak and hear because of his hearing loss.

Since learning more about Myles and doing some research, Britney and her husband found out about the Ear Community Organization through another Microtia family online who knew about Ear Community.  Originally, Britney was looking for a hearing device for Myles after struggling to request a hearing device through their audiologist and hitting road blocks with obtaining insurance approval.  To Britney’s surprise, she not only was able to obtain an Oticon Medical Ponto Plus hearing device for Myles through Ear Community, but she also discovered a gold mine of information for her son including information for school and about how additional hearing device technology (such as an FM system) can help him while at school along with services such as FREE speech therapy.  Britney shared that, “My husband & I didn’t sleep at all last night. You are such a wealth of knowledge & breath of fresh air. Your kindness is an answer to our prayers & we cannot say thank you enough. Dead end after dead end then in 1 conversation it finally starts to all make sense.  We are so excited that our baby boy will finally get a chance at “normal” hearing- thanks to you! We just wanted to say thank you again. ♥️”  Britney’s son, Myles, received his Oticon Medical Ponto Plus hearing device w/streamer through Ear Community on Wednesday, September 19th, 2018.  Since turning on his Ponto, Myles hasn’t stopped smiling and talking!  Britney says “I can tell already that he is hearing waaay better. We can’t thank you enough!”

Myles would not have been able to obtain his new Ponto Plus from Oticon Medical and Ear Community without Britney advocating for her son.  In addition, many people are often involved in helping make things happen.  Thank you to Beverly Ostrowski (Customer Service Manager) of Oticon Medical for helping find an audiologist to help program Myles’ new Ponto.  A special thank you to Dr. Paul Gaudiano (Oticon Medical audiologist) for finding the time to donate his time and services to program Myles’ new Ponto in between travel for work.  Together, everyone was able to help Myles hear better since birth.  A very special thank you to Alan Raffauf, Vice President of Marketing and Operations for Oticon Medical US, for choosing to donate the new Oticon Medical Ponto Plus hearing device w/streamer to Ear Community so that our organization could help Myles hear better.  Thank you for everyone’s support and for helping Ear Community continue with its mission of helping individuals with Microtia and Atresia. Oticon Medical believes in helping individuals with hearing loss so that they can live a better quality of life.  Oticon Medical believes in helping individuals with hearing loss so that they can live a better quality of life. Oticon Medical is a well respected international hearing device manufacturer that is a part of the “William Demant Group with 100-plus years of experience in audiology and sound processing and established manufacturing and logistics infrastructure.”

Thank you again to everyone who was involved in helping change Myles’ life!  We are excited for Myles to start talking more and hearing better.   We are also excited to hear how much your speech improves now that you have some help through speech therapy!
– Congratulations from all of us at Ear Community
www.EarCommunity.org