Lena Update

It has been a busy week with Halloween and all the doctor appointments we have had this week.   Lena had her CT scan and sedated ABR appointment on Wednesday, October 31st.  Thankfully, I had to wake her up to get her dressed and get her into the car so she didn't even know she missed breakfast.  We dropped three of the brothers off at grandma and grandpa's and then we were off to Children's.   She was a little hesitant at first and I was a little nervous they were going to turn her away because she was coughing that morning, but they didn't.  She did very well and the CT scan and ABR went great.   They came and got me when she was waking up- she woke up about an hour before they wanted her to, so they expected her to be very crabby, but she wasn't all that much.  She kept pointing at the Winnie the Pooh characters on the wall and I kept signing, bear, pig, butterfly, etc. :)    She did so well in fact, her audiologist was able to take impressions of her ear for hearing aides.   She had to do one of them twice, but it was nice to have that done and not have to go back for another visit just for that.  We also picked out a color for the hearing aid-translucent purple and a color for the piece that sits in the ear- glittery purple.  I wasn't prepared for that, but I figured I'd pick a color she might like and one that might make her want to put them in and keep them in.  We'll see how that goes!   She did have no response in her left ear, so I am not sure if they will try to aide that ear or not.   Her right ear response was 70-80 decibels, which is a severe hearing loss.  This was better than what the booth testing showed though- 80-90 decibels, which was more severe to profound.   The audiologist thinks the ultra power hearing aide may help her.   I guess we will go back for a hearing aide fitting and try them out for awhile!   The next day we then went back to Children's to see our ENT for the CT results.   She said Lena's CT scan was normal and that the temporal bone and all the inner ear structure and components were there and looked normal.   We are going to look into a blood test for her, pending insurance will cover it, to try and determine if she is deaf due to genetics or environmental factors.  That will be good information for her to know for later in life when she decides to try to have a family of her own.  All in all, everything went wonderfully and we certainly felt and appreciated all the prayers!