For 17 years, Madilyn Moreau has only known silence.

The Lewiston High senior was diagnosed at birth with microtia, a rare condition in which one or both ears are underdeveloped; in her case, both.

“You’re born without ear drums, or basically the anatomy of an ear; you just don’t have it whatsoever,” Moreau said.

She has struggled to communicate for years after ditching her hearing aids in middle school because she worried about what her peers thought. She didn’t learn American Sign Language, though she is able to communicate verbally. Instead, Moreau leans on her ability to read lips in class and as she competes on the Lewiston field hockey and track teams.

“All four years of high school, I’ve basically just gone to school in complete silence, so to everyone else, classrooms are loud and noisy. To me, they’re just complete silence and I’m constantly trying to figure out what’s going on.”

That could soon change. On Tuesday, she is scheduled to undergo a surgery that her doctors say is the final step in Moreau being able to hear.

They will implant magnetic devices in her skull that connect to a hearing aid on the top of her head. It’s a complicated procedure that will likely require up to six weeks of recovery.

“I cannot imagine what life is going to be like when I can hear all the time,” Moreau said, “like, I wonder if I’m going to be smarter.”

EARLY DIAGNOSIS

Doctors told Moreau’s mother that one in every 25,000 babies are born with unilateral microtia, and only one in every 50,000 cases are bilateral. It develops during pregnancy, and there’s not much research on how or why it’s caused. Moreau said she’s never met another person with her bilateral condition. 

That was especially challenging for her mom, Briana Moreau, who was 18 when she gave birth.

“That’s always been kind of difficult not having this huge community,” Briana Moreau said. “It’s been made easier with social media … and so being able to hear the stories from other parents and things that they have encountered and experienced, has been a little bit easier to have some sort of a community, but it definitely didn’t start that way.”

Madilyn Moreau has already had five surgeries. When she was 6, surgeons took a piece of her rib and reshaped it into the physical structure of an ear. It was successful, so the same procedure was repeated on the other side. 

“I had my head wrapped and in bandages, so I looked like a mummy, and I had tubes in my head that drained and stuff,” Moreau said. “I couldn’t really walk for a while as well, because having your ribs taken out does put a little bit of a difference in your balance.

As a young mom, Briana Moreau said the surgeries were scary and she had to learn how to advocate for her child.

“My concerns weren’t always taken seriously, or somebody else felt they knew better, to the point when we had one of our first (ear, nose and throat) appointments in Portland, I ended up having to ask the provider to leave, because he told me what was going to happen with next steps, but would not give me options as to what we could do,” Briana Moreau said.

Madilyn Moreau said her peers became aware of her condition when she’d take her hearing aids out of the case before kindergarten recess. Classmates would stare and make fun of the beeping mechanisms, she said.

“The hearing aid itself, I did not like,” Moreau said. “I really didn’t like the noises it made, I didn’t like the way it pointed out of my hair. If I had a nice outfit on and I felt all happy, then I had to put my hearing aid on, it always just felt like that ugly cherry on top that I really didn’t like.”

Her mom said she has struggled with those feelings because she wants her daughter to use all of the available tools to communicate with others as best she can.

“As a parent, it has been frustrating that she has not wanted to wear her hearing aid because there’s so many little things that she has missed out on,” Briana Moreau said. “But it is her choice, her body, and I wanted her to be able to make that decision.”

ATHLETIC ENDEAVORS

Moreau is a multisport athlete at Lewiston High. In outdoor and indoor track, she runs the 100-meter hurdles, 300 hurdles and the 200. She also competes in the high jump and javelin. Track and field is mostly an individual-focused sport, so she’s usually able to get the information she needs by reading lips before the event begins. 

In field hockey, Blue Devils coach Jenessa Talarico said she typically plays Moreau in the right wing or right forward position, so she’s closer to the team sideline. That makes communicating easier. When teams switch to the opposite side, Moreau leans on her ability to read lips.

But that’s still an imperfect solution.

“My coach is constantly shouting commands and I get almost none of them,” Moreau said. “I really never hear them, so I definitely look lost on the field most of the time, like a little lost puppy.”

Senior teammate Grace Colgate said she screams “at the top of my lungs” to Moreau on the field after coaches give direction. It’s challenging, she said, because people often don’t understand the severity of Moreau’s inability to hear from a distance.

Talarico said Moreau is one of the fastest players on the team and a great athlete. But that’s not why she’s important to the program; it’s the joy and upbeat personality she brings to the field.

Added Lewiston track coach Craig John: “I think that’s probably the No. 1 thing about her, how she just perseveres through everything. She’s not going to let anything get in her way, nothing. If there’s something she wants to do, she’s going to figure out a way to get it done.”

Although excited, Moreau acknowledged a part of her is scared to be able hear. She said she’s become proud of her condition, embracing how it sets her apart.