Audiology: Check (Sort Of)

Hanging out at the Buffalo Zoo

The drive to Buffalo is long, but fortunately we have invested in hand-held gaming systems reared travel-hardy children. Nolan was a little recalcitrant about going into the audiology booth, swinging his legs and beginning to throw a fit. I used blatant bribery (a trip to the zoo) to get him to cooperate. I'm not above zombifying my kids with electronic entertainment or offering bribes anymore. I think I have "arrived" as a mother.

He cooperated nicely. I think the last full hearing test done at his regular audiologist was over a year ago. Their last record still shows a rising configuration in his left ear, which made his loss moderately severe rising to mild. Our testing at Buffalo Children's last November showed a flat moderately-severe loss, so I wasn't surprised when our current audiologist showed the same thing. I did see one point hit the 70dB mark, which makes me a little anxious. That's a little close to the "S" word (severe) for my liking. Thankfully that was only one frequency.

Before increasing the amplification in his hearing aids, they want to confirm with another hearing test in a month.

Oh, goody.

The strange thing is that his air-bone gap has largely disappeared. This means that his loss is purely sensorineural again - either he's been throwing false air-bone gaps (it happens), or he has a truly fluctuating/progressive hearing loss that proceeds in a very weird fashion (the drops appear conductive at first, but solidify into a sensorineural loss). Weird.

I suppose time will tell. Hopefully he'll stabilize where he's at.

Tomorrow we are going to Erie (a slightly shorter drive, but still an hour each way) to see the ophthalmologist. To patch or not to patch, that is the question!

This is otterly amazing!