Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Today we went to LA to check Mia's hearing. Since she hasn't been saying as many sounds since her skull surgery, the thought was to give her another hearing test, just to be on the safe side, to make sure she's not missing any particular range of hearing. We know she hears, we just wanted to make sure all of her hearing was there.

Good news, she's got all of her hearing. They put us in this soundproof room with two large speakers on either side. We sat in the middle on a chair, (I was told not to make any movement, so as not to discredit the results...) and then they played different sounds at different levels. If Mia looked in the direction that the sounds were coming from, a toy popped out of the speaker (either Minnie Mouse or SpongeBob!) and lights flashed and she was told, "good job!". Then there was a duck that would light up in front to get her to focus again before they tried another sound. She missed some of the really soft ones, but that could be because she was distracted with what was in front of her...but, she got all of them at some point, so they were pretty convinced she has all levels of hearing...it may not be in both ears, they can't check that at this point because she can't vocalize what ear she hears it in, but it may be that both ears are completely normal also.

On a side note, they asked if she had ever been jaundiced and put under the lights, which happened right after she was born for a few days, and they told me that sometimes there is a link between hearing loss and kids with jaundice. They are still studying this to understand it better...and they also asked if she's ever had a blood transfusion, which she has, and that also can contribute somehow...

They checked if her inner ears had any fluid in them, they were clear, so that was good news also. They said to come back in 6-12 months if there is still more concern at that time.

It was a good report overall.

This morning, Mia said "bye". Daddy heard it very clearly. She might not understand what she says, but that was encouraging to hear a new sound/word. We'll keep you posted.

Oh, and Synagis...supposedly Wednesday, please pray that everything would go smoothly with her last Synagis shot.

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