Nolan cooperated really nicely for his booth test yesterday. With the exception of being very chatty (we had to shove his mouth full of cookies to get him to quiet down), he habituated quickly to the dancing puppy and koala and dutifully squealed with delight every time the animals lit up. We got great results as far as accuracy is concerned. As far as hearing level...
We've had a drop. A big one in the high frequencies. Twenty decibels gone in three months' time. We've gone from having a rising audiogram to a nearly flat audiogram, and now we have a "reverse cookie bite" audiogram. In the moderate to moderately severe range.
We're lucky that his hearing aids are more than capable of handling any configuration and almost any loss level (they are good all the way down to the severe range). We don't know why Nolan has his hearing loss, though our audi did ask if he had his eyes checked yet. That's the only test that hasn't been done yet (they can't really test for that particular syndrome until they're toddlers). Nolan's not at risk for type 1 Usher's, but there are two other variants that have moderate or progressive hearing losses associated. I doubt that's the case, and we'll probably just never know why his hair cells are dying.
Anyway, his last results (from May) were:
500Hz: 50dB
1000Hz:40dB
2000Hz: 35-40dB (depending on the ear)
4000Hz: 35dB
I don't have the official report yet, but I saw his audiogram in the office. Our results are now:
500Hz: 55-60dB
1000Hz: 50-55dB
2000Hz: 40-45dB
4000Hz: 55dB
I did have a moment of relief when I saw that his tymps were flat, but our audiologist quickly told me that he has tubes and they were looking to make sure one of the numbers was high enough to show the tubes were open. His tubes are open and functioning beautifully. So its a true loss and not anything complicated by a conductive component.
Nolan's aids were adjusted and he can hear those "f," "th," and "s" sounds again. We'll be going in every three months for hearing tests to monitor his levels. Hopefully he'll stabilize, but if he doesn't- at least we have a great audiologist who is really proactive and a great set of aids that can compensate for his current level of loss.
3 comments:
Oh Leah,
I'm so sorry about the drop. My heart sinks each time it happens with Tate.
Glad you and your Audi are "on it". And who knows... some losses fluctuate.
Julie
My name is Heather Frost. son is deaf he is 19 months old. Gavin has EVA or LVA.Just recieve his first implant.
I would like to invite you to visit my blog and feel free to leave comments. We are in the same boat maybe we could become friends!
heatherfrost1206.blogspot.com
you know, we never knew why Brook's continued to drop either. Gage was born deaf but his aided audiogram always showed a decline in his hearing but he has a syndrome related to hearing loss, Brook doesn't it. Sometimes you just have to assume that it was meant to be, and be satisfied. He sounds like he's in great hands though, good to know there's always ci's if he drops down to that point.
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