Today Elly had a sedated ABR (Auditory Brainstem Response Hearing Test) to get individual ear information and make molds for hearing aids. She was under propofol sedation for 2 hours as the audiologist checked responses. She ended up checking some frequencies more than once as she got normal hearing in Elly’s right ear and only a mild loss in her left ear (the one with the biggest perforation). WOW! Over the past two weeks Elly had soundbooth audiometry at two different offices by two different audiologists showing a moderate hearing loss seemingly in both ears. They really felt like the testing was very consistent and repeatable ….. they almost made her ear molds last week and then decided to go for this ABR. She passed her newborn hearing screening and we had opted against doing the sedated ABR when she was younger, which really worked out well for us now. They likely wouldn’t have repeated the test at this point and would have just assumed her hearing loss was due to the perforations (which it is). This way we found out that her hearing loss is much milder than we had thought and it is unilateral. We are so thankful because now our game plan is a lot different. They did make a mold for her left ear and we are just going to experiment with a few different scenarios.

        One scenario involves a loaner hearing aid to see how she responds with everything amplified in her left ear. The other involves using an FM system and just amplifying speech. The biggest puzzle (and most concerning to me) is why she did not respond at all to the lower dB’s at either hearing test. They were shocked too because her responses had been so consistent. She clearly understood the task and did well with higher volumes. There are probably a lot of possible answers like she’s two, or the sounds didn’t mean anything to her but we still need to make sure she’s processing auditory information properly.

        Good news though … we are thrilled for Elly. Stay tuned for updates as we journey through the options. Thanks for the thoughts and prayers.

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