Meningitis Survivor Dances to Own Drum

by Elizabeth Thompson

What began as a bothersome cold for nine-month-old Katharine Grimm would end up being a life-changing illness. When parents Scott and Karin took Katie to her pediatrician, she was diagnosed with a flu-like cold. But Katie's illness quickly changed. Katie was ashen, her eyes a dull grey, and her body became rigid. Karin took her back to the physician and the results of a spinal tap told them Katie had pneumococcal meningitis. She spent three weeks in the hospital.

Katie at 13 months.
Photo courtesy Scott Grimm

"We were devastated. I remember crying my eyes out when Karin called with the news. We were told she could possibly suffer brain damage or die. It was one of the worst 24-hour periods of our lives as we awaited the outcome," Scott recalls. "Our church congregation, Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church in Magnolia, Wash., gathered to pray and we believe this helped Katie," Scotts says.

Katie's illness was draining for Scott and Karin too, but with faith and support from family and friends, they pulled through. "Karin was an inspiration to me with her strength. Hopefully, I was the same for her," Scott says.

A week after Katie was released from the hospital, her parents had her hearing evaluated. Scott and Karin watched the results of the hearing tests on the screen. "I knew immediately from the reaction of the audiologists and the poor showing on the screen that Katie had hearing loss," Scott recalls.

After the initial shock of learning their baby girl was deaf, they had to face the tough choices of their new reality. The family chose sign language and tried Signing Exact English (SEE) but with time realized that Katie was responding better to speech. "Katie rejected sign language and preferred oral communication. Karin researched other programs and found Auditory Verbal Therapy (AVT). It intrigued us and when we saw the results in children, we knew this was the way we wanted to go," says Scott.

However, the parents' choice met with resistance from the Seattle public schools. "The schools refused to recognize AVT as a legitimate therapy because they had no one on staff trained in it. This is the horrible secret reality of children with hearing impairment. School districts try to pigeon-hole children instead of developing true Individualized Service Plans . because that requires thinking outside the box," Scott says. "School specialists never evaluated Katie in context and rejected our attempts to put together a coherent program. One counselor told me they knew better than we did," Scott vividly remembers. Unconvinced, especially since none of the administrators and audiologists making the decisions for Katie had ever met or evaluated her in person, Scott and Karin persisted and prevailed with the plan they wanted for their daughter. Katie's success in school has validated their decisions.

Thanks to her mother's determination and attention, Listen and Talk, a local speech-language therapy program (www.listentalk.org), AVT and a cochlear implant at age five, Katie is completely mainstreamed in fifth grade at Our Lady of Fatima School. She uses a sound field device to help her hear everything the teacher says. Even more impressive is Katie's hobby - dance. Scott says, "Katie lives to dance and practices her moves even while watching television. Katie will be in the Nutcracker for her third year this winter."

Katie's story is an encouragement to parents to be proactive in making choices for their children. Scott reflects: "Getting through meningitis and the realization that Katie was deaf was tough but not the end of the world. Our faith and family pulled us through. What happened was the opening of a new and different world. Katie is living proof that meningitis and deafness will not defeat the human spirit and that hard work, technology and a lot of love will pull you through."

Elizabeth Thompson is a freelance writer. She lives with her husband in Grove City, Ohio. Elizabeth lost her hearing gradually since childhood and was totally deaf at age 50. She received a cochlear implant four years ago. Contact her at writeop@msworld.org.