"CHANGING AMINA’S FUTURE FOREVER"
by Stan Griffin

The little, brown-eyed, dark-haired girl clapped her hands together as she figuratively "broke out of prison." Deaf since birth, three-year-old Amina was hearing for the first time sounds from the world around her. On that day she heard several doctors clapping, and a man’s voice (Mohammed, her father or "baba") speaking in his soft Arabic accent saying " ... the names of all the relatives" who were thousands of miles away in Iraq. Most of all, Amina seem thrilled to hear her own voice as she repeated over and over: "Ah, oh, baba" as she looked at different objects. As Mohammed pointed at himself, she finally realized he was "baba."

On July 30 Amina and Mohammed had flown from their home in Iraq to Miami, Florida (a long and exhausting trip) where they were taken to the Holtz Children’s Hospital, part of the University of Miami’s Jackson Memorial Medical Center. She came there to have a hearing implant surgically placed in her ear. This "cochlear implant ... (involves) placing inside the cochlear an electronic device with electrodes that collect impulses from a transmitter/receiver and sends them to the brain. (It) is accompanied by a speech processor that selects and arranges sounds picked up by a microphone ..."

Amina’s surgery was performed in mid-August, but the device wasn’t initially activated until August 24.

Soon after Amina was born, her parents could tell something was wrong because she didn’t respond to them or make the noises babies usually make. At the age of four months, after doctors conducted long examinations, Mohammed and his wife were given the diagnosis: Amina, their only child, had Profound Sensorineural Hearing Loss: total deafness.

Through a chance meeting with an Iraqi engineer who was touched by Amina’s condition, a network of e-mails was established. One reached Col. Warner Anderson, a U.S. Army Special Forces doctor stationed in Iraq since 2003. Dr. Anderson contacted Dr. Thomas Balkany, chairman of the otolaryngology department at Miami University’s Miller School of Medicine who agreed to perform Amina’s surgery.

Dr. Balkany expects that " Amina will eventually have a hearing capability of 80%."

He also said the surgery is the easy part. She will have to spend a month in therapy in Miami and then several months in Iraq. Amina must learn to connect sounds to voices and objects, " ... the same process a newborn would go through ..."

Her family couldn’t pay for the surgery so the International Kids Fund (IKF), a Miami-based aid group, is trying to raise the necessary $40,000. They currently need $32,000 more. Since Amina is not a U.S. resident, a public hospital can’t use taxpayer money to fund her operation.

Mohammed, age 30, is a painter. He didn’t want the rest of his name used " ... for fear of retribution once he and Amina return to Baghdad."

SOURCES

Cincinnati Enquirer, August 28, 2006, "Deaf Iraqi Girl, 3, Can Hear For the First Time," Kelli Kennedy

Web Site: www.internationalkidsfund.org

© Stan Griffin, 2006