Praise the Lord! I am SO excited to share with you all that Julia has the great majority of her hearing!!
We made our way to BC Children's Hospital this morning and let me tell you - it was a bit of an ordeal...
The test was slotted for 9am until noon. Yes, THREE full hours. Julia needed to be sleeping for the test so we were given instructions on how to prepare ahead of time. Julia woke up at 6 am this morning so I fed her and then she needed to stay awake until her appointment. I'm not sure about you, but have you ever had a baby stay awake on a long car ride? Yeah. It doesn't happen (at least not my children!). So I enlisted Mom Wookey to come along with me. She sat in the back with Julia and every time she tried to nod off to dreamland she was rubbed with an ice cold cloth. Let's just say that she was NOT a happy camper! Poor grandma felt bad, Julia cried the whole time, but in the end it totally paid off.
We arrived to our appointment and got set up. Julia had wires attached to various parts of her face and had little ear pieces inserted. I nursed her to sleep and then we began the testing. She had to be so still throughout the testing; if she wiggled, made noise, blinked, etc. the audiologist had to pause the test until she settled down again. The measurements are so precise that the muscle movement of blinking can throw off the results. Crazy, hey?!
She slept like a champ though. It was amazing!
As you can see, Julia got nice and comfortable; she sprawled out across my arm and the pillow that was helping prop my arm up. It didn't look comfy to us....but she seemed to like it!
At the end of the appointment the audiologist went over the results of the test with us. We were told that Julia has a lot more hearing than we thought! This chart was given to us as a visual aid to understand it all.
The yellow line is what they consider the baseline for normal hearing in infants. Julia's right and left ears both hear mid to high frequency/pitch at a normal level. She does, however, have mild hearing loss in the low frequency/pitch area with her left ear being slightly worse than her right. The audiologist said that at this point there really is no reason for any sort of hearing aids which was such a relief! We don't have to worry about talking to one ear more than another, make sure the "good" ear isn't blocked, or anything of that sort. We can talk and sing to her just like any other baby. We are SO utterly thankful!
The mild hearing loss that she does have seems to be due to the bony structures within her ear. Her cochlea and auditory nerve function properly so it's likely that there is malformation of the bones in her ears - which totally makes sense considering Apert syndrome causes fusion of bones where there wouldn't otherwise be fusion. We will have more auditory testing done as Julia grows but for now we can talk and sing to her and be confident she is hearing Mommy and Daddy's voice. Too bad she also has to hear Abby ramble on and throw tantrums and hear Harley bark his head off!
This news has lifted such a weight off of me that I hadn't even fully realized was there. I want to say a huge thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. We were given wonderful news and I truly believe your prayers played a part in it all.
And here's my other little, thoroughly enjoying her arts and crafts time with Auntie Nichole while we were gone. She loved it! Thank you for waking up early and braving rush hour traffic to watch her for me. You're amazing!
We made our way to BC Children's Hospital this morning and let me tell you - it was a bit of an ordeal...
The test was slotted for 9am until noon. Yes, THREE full hours. Julia needed to be sleeping for the test so we were given instructions on how to prepare ahead of time. Julia woke up at 6 am this morning so I fed her and then she needed to stay awake until her appointment. I'm not sure about you, but have you ever had a baby stay awake on a long car ride? Yeah. It doesn't happen (at least not my children!). So I enlisted Mom Wookey to come along with me. She sat in the back with Julia and every time she tried to nod off to dreamland she was rubbed with an ice cold cloth. Let's just say that she was NOT a happy camper! Poor grandma felt bad, Julia cried the whole time, but in the end it totally paid off.
We arrived to our appointment and got set up. Julia had wires attached to various parts of her face and had little ear pieces inserted. I nursed her to sleep and then we began the testing. She had to be so still throughout the testing; if she wiggled, made noise, blinked, etc. the audiologist had to pause the test until she settled down again. The measurements are so precise that the muscle movement of blinking can throw off the results. Crazy, hey?!
She slept like a champ though. It was amazing!
As you can see, Julia got nice and comfortable; she sprawled out across my arm and the pillow that was helping prop my arm up. It didn't look comfy to us....but she seemed to like it!
At the end of the appointment the audiologist went over the results of the test with us. We were told that Julia has a lot more hearing than we thought! This chart was given to us as a visual aid to understand it all.
The yellow line is what they consider the baseline for normal hearing in infants. Julia's right and left ears both hear mid to high frequency/pitch at a normal level. She does, however, have mild hearing loss in the low frequency/pitch area with her left ear being slightly worse than her right. The audiologist said that at this point there really is no reason for any sort of hearing aids which was such a relief! We don't have to worry about talking to one ear more than another, make sure the "good" ear isn't blocked, or anything of that sort. We can talk and sing to her just like any other baby. We are SO utterly thankful!
The mild hearing loss that she does have seems to be due to the bony structures within her ear. Her cochlea and auditory nerve function properly so it's likely that there is malformation of the bones in her ears - which totally makes sense considering Apert syndrome causes fusion of bones where there wouldn't otherwise be fusion. We will have more auditory testing done as Julia grows but for now we can talk and sing to her and be confident she is hearing Mommy and Daddy's voice. Too bad she also has to hear Abby ramble on and throw tantrums and hear Harley bark his head off!
This news has lifted such a weight off of me that I hadn't even fully realized was there. I want to say a huge thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. We were given wonderful news and I truly believe your prayers played a part in it all.
And here's my other little, thoroughly enjoying her arts and crafts time with Auntie Nichole while we were gone. She loved it! Thank you for waking up early and braving rush hour traffic to watch her for me. You're amazing!
Just starting to follow after your bbc post. So happy you had some positive results at this hearing test.
ReplyDeleteSending thoughts and prayers your way.
Canadadaymomma