Too Well?!?!

Last week we had an appointment with Sallie's cochlear audiologist (Dr. Bari). We started out with booth testing in which she responds to different sounds at different frequencies in the sound booth. I went in with her. I really can't begin to explain what that feels like. Aaron and I both have been in there with her many, many times over the past nearly 11 years and most of those times have been very disheartening. It is not a great feeling to have to put in earplugs to protect your own hearing and still be able to hear the extremely loud sounds and your child not respond. SO, I just sat there in AWE last week as she responded to a couple of sounds that neither I nor the audiologist inside the booth could hear! The audiologist outside the booth had to tell us that there was sound on a couple of higher frequencies which Sallie has never ever responded to, even when she was aided and receiving some benefit from the aids. It is amazing!!! What a journey this has been and continues to be! We have a LONG way yet to go but we are making steps which are bigger than ever before and our God has been and continues to be with us every step! HIS timing is beyond humbling for me! We are asked over and over why she was not implanted sooner which is a completely legitimate question for those who do not know all the details of her story and there are a lot of them. There are MANY reasons why but as we look back at all of them the bottom line is timing. God was in control of all the details. Had we implanted her sooner there is a high likelihood that we would have never known about the tumors that grow inside her ears and that they would have caused significant brain damage or death. I can completely say I trust HIM with the details. HE knows much better than us! Thank you Lord!

So as you can see from the graph (which is neat to compare with those in previous posts) she tested better than ever. However, as you can also see she tested better than she should. What? I NEVER thought I would hear the words "Sallie is hearing better than she should!" Looking at the graph you will see her responses marked with the letter R. She responded to some of the sounds at below 20 db. You will see that she has marked normal ci which is cochlear implant is 20 to 30 db. The issue is that if they are responding better than 20 to 30 there is a high likelihood that there is too much power going into the device so even though she may be responding that well there could be clarity issues. I admit this mama has a hard time with that. I get it. I completely understand it. I know our goal is clarity. But it was really nice to see her respond to those quieter sounds! In the end the audiologist turned her down around 10 percent overall. We will see how she does with that. I will say we were having issues when we first turned on each day. It really upset her to the point she would hold her head and crouch down and that is much better since the turn down.

Tomorrow we see Dr. Bauer and he will decide whether or not we head back to the OR to do clean-up on the left ear which is the ear she last had surgery on. Once again, trusting HIM with the details!