Jonica was a good girl and slept beautifully for the entire test, so we got lots of good information. We still have to go back to complete the testing, but we got a really good idea of what we're dealing with.
I went into today preparing for the worst. We knew that we had to go into a third pregnancy prepared to have another hearing impaired baby, worst-case a profoundly deaf child, and both Keith & I had noticed that Jonica really didn't respond or startle to much. I think we had each coughed or sneezed while holding her and she hadn't jumped at all, so I was beginning to wonder if she had much hearing at all. I was doing alright until about half-way along the bus trip into town - then the anxiety of the unknown began to set in. What if she was profoundly deaf and needed cochlear implants? How much was she really hearing now, if anything? Suddenly those possibilities stared me straight in the face, and i'm thankful for the prayers of my friends for strength in that time.
Our audiologist turned out to be the same one who diagnosed Jarrah's loss 3 years ago! It was nice to see her again, although not under ideal circumstances...Jonica was already sound asleep so we got straight into testing. We completed click tests (air conduction, via a little headphone) on both sides, bone conduction on both sides (which bypasses the middle ear structures and passes sound straight to the cochlear via the skull), began some Tone Burst testing on the left side (testing different frequencies, high & mid & low sounds) and tympanometry (movement of the eardrum & middle ear pressure). These results form part of the picture, the rest will be completed at a future appointment.
It appears that Jonica has a mild-moderate loss bilaterally (both ears), which is *way* better than i was expecting. I'll post her complete results once we have them, but initial indications seem to be a sloping mild-moderate loss, between 40-60db. This is actually not quite as severe as Jarrah & Kaelen, and in my mind a cause for celebration! It seems she has quite a lot of residual hearing so she *should* actually be hearing quite a bit of what's going on. Such a sense of relief in not having to consider surgery for implants; it actually put a smile on my face to know that it seems her road will hopefully not be as hard as her brothers'... The tympanometry test showed good movement of her eardrums & no apparent blockages either in her middle ear or Eustachian tube, so these seems to be fairly reliable results.
After 1.5hrs of clicks and sitting extremely still, we were done for the day. Results will be finalised at the next appointment, although given the bone conduction results gained today we will be referred to Australian Hearing immediately. And we'll need to go see our trusty ENT again as he needs to give the OK for Jonica to be fitted with hearing aids. We signed forms at Yeerongpilly yesterday to begin Jonica's enrolment in the early intervention programme as we didn't expect today's results to contradict the newborn screens - she'll begin her sessions in 2011.
Here we go again...another bunch of extra appointments, but hopefully nothing we haven't done before...
Next appt: Thurs 21st Oct, Jonica's Audiology follow-up
1 comment:
Frustrating though I'm sure all this is, I guess it does answer the question as to whether it's gender related, with the answer being 'no'. All the best with keeping up with which appointment is for which child! :-0
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