Sadie's Hearing Update

Sadie can hear!!!

To recap where we are, click here and here. These are the posts from her last 2 appointments.

We went in to the Pediatric ENT this morning, and after a long appointment (1.5 hours total!), Sadie can hear! Well, partially, anyway. We started with the tympanogram (to test ear drum movement) and the left ear showed movement, but the right ear did not. The audiologist thought it was likely due to fluid in one ear, and not the other. Then, the doctor looked in her ears and verified that the fluid has drained from the left ear, but not the right.

So, he sent us back to the audiologist for an OAE (Otoacoustic Emissions) to check her left ear. It was fine (by this, I mean they can only rule out MAJOR hearing loss, but will need more tests to assure there isn't minor loss). I learned how the OAE works--it sends a frequency and the ear responds with an echo, so it can't tell much more than a pass/fail result. However, a pass means NO MAJOR HEARING LOSS! That's great!!

Dr. Freidman is hopeful that the right ear will also drain, because the left ear did. We'll see in 6 weeks.

Because she is hearing in the one ear, we don't need to worry about her speech and language development anymore. Dr. Freidman said that she will get all the stimulation that she needs from the one ear, and she shouldn't have any problems.