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lollardfishYesterday, Nico started to fuss a little while standing on my lap, so I lifted him up in the air, as I often to, to calm the flailing of the limbs. Out from his mouth came a river of warm, white, goo, all over my face and chest. It was genuinely disquieting. Fortunately, Shannon was there to take the boy and let me go clean up.
More importantly, yesterday started at 5:15 A.M. Shannon got up and fed him, and we all got up an hour later with the mission of keeping Nicholas awake and not feeding him any more. We set off for Chidren's Hospital a little around 7:30, with Shannon sitting in the back seat with the nigh-impossible task of keeping the boy from sleeping in the car. She poked, she played, she opened the window, she poked and played some more, and more or less kept him from getting any rest. Once at the hospital, the plan was to lightly sedate him, attach sensors to his brain, and truly test his hearing.
For those arriving late to the party, Nico has failed every hearing test he has been given. These tests shoot sounds of about 65 db towards the ear drum, then measure the rate of return of the sounds back. But the sounds coming back are weak, about 6 db, and any kind of fluid in the canals (which he has had) or tiny ear canals (which he has) can block it. We believed Nico could hear since he responds to various sounds, but we did have a serious question about degree.
At any rate, we got the boy to Children's. As hospitals go, I found it a little eerie. It's covered with bright colors, animals, and looks very much like a house of play and joy. To me, though, it signified the unspeakable sadness of serious ill children, a sadness that I have touched in those first hours of Nico's life, even if, for us, joy quickly won out. The various medical staff (an audiologist and a nurse, I think) were competant and pleasant, even if getting Nico to swallow the nasty tasting sedative required much patience and enduring considerable shouting from my boy. Nothing wrong with his lungs! I settled him into a natural sleep, finally, let him drop into a sedated sleep, then Shannon and I left him to the staff and went away for breakfast for an hour (mid-town market, La Loma, I had huevos con chorizo, she huevos rancheors (with green sauce and beans and rice).
Alas, my son woke up at some point when were gone and the nurse had to snuggle and settle him, which she did, but not without it taking a little time, so they weren't done by the time we came back and I had to sit there on the glider and snuggle him myself for 30 minutes or so. We also narrowly avoided an unnecessary scare.
So this test puts a sensor on his forehead, then one by each ear. As I understand it, the machine can measure the differences in brain activity near each sensor and thus measure how well the brain is detecting each sound. They then stick little sound emitters in each ear and can control the kind of sound (range, speed, and volume). At any rate, with the "click-test," his right ear got to 25 db which is essentially normal, and his left ear (which is, visually, the crinkly one) to 30 db, which signifies mild hearing loss. I'm not quite sure why they call it "loss," but they do, implying the former possession of something now lost. I think of it as having reduced hearing ability, but perhaps that sounds too pejorative. At any rate, the audiologist (while we were gone) then went to do a nerve test, where she can put sounds into the brain in a way that bypasses the ear canals and any congestion or fluid that might be blocking the sound (she had tested the ear drums earlier and noted that the left ear drum wasn't resonating quite as well as the right, leading to the conclusion that there was still fluid in that ear, which matched our E.N.T. doctor's thoughts). So she put the nerve device on, hit go, and nothing ... no brain response ... raised the volume ... no brain response, and she started to gear herself up to tell the parents, that's us, that our son had nerve-related hearing loss, non-medically treatable, and that we'd have to get hearing aids and deal with this forever.
Except then she asked her assistant (a coordinator thinking about nursing school who was pitching in for the day) whether she could feel anything in her fingers while holding the nerve-sound device. She could not. It was broken. At this point we arrived and got to witness Nico's brain responding to sounds down to 15 db when applied directly to the nerve.
So the upshot is pretty good news. He probably has some congestion in his ears. His basic equipment (and brain) are dealing with sounds just fine. We'll need to get tubes, likely, or loaner hearing aids (to turn up the gain a little) for a few months as his ears grow, because we don't want to let things be too muffled for him as we move towards speech. He can hear us when we speak to him, but things aren't going to be all that clear, especially quieter sounds.
Everyone we meet in the hearing business praises our Ear-Nose-Throat doctor to the skies, especially as a doctor for children, so hooray for that. We'll just follow his recommendation (we like him too. And he's from Chicago, I think, so should have a good reference for us).
In other news, my son has found his toes (they are so neat!) and his daddy's mouth. When I hold him on my chest and talk, he reaches his upper hand up to play with my lips and beard, staring wonderously at them, and trying to figure it all out.
More importantly, yesterday started at 5:15 A.M. Shannon got up and fed him, and we all got up an hour later with the mission of keeping Nicholas awake and not feeding him any more. We set off for Chidren's Hospital a little around 7:30, with Shannon sitting in the back seat with the nigh-impossible task of keeping the boy from sleeping in the car. She poked, she played, she opened the window, she poked and played some more, and more or less kept him from getting any rest. Once at the hospital, the plan was to lightly sedate him, attach sensors to his brain, and truly test his hearing.
For those arriving late to the party, Nico has failed every hearing test he has been given. These tests shoot sounds of about 65 db towards the ear drum, then measure the rate of return of the sounds back. But the sounds coming back are weak, about 6 db, and any kind of fluid in the canals (which he has had) or tiny ear canals (which he has) can block it. We believed Nico could hear since he responds to various sounds, but we did have a serious question about degree.
At any rate, we got the boy to Children's. As hospitals go, I found it a little eerie. It's covered with bright colors, animals, and looks very much like a house of play and joy. To me, though, it signified the unspeakable sadness of serious ill children, a sadness that I have touched in those first hours of Nico's life, even if, for us, joy quickly won out. The various medical staff (an audiologist and a nurse, I think) were competant and pleasant, even if getting Nico to swallow the nasty tasting sedative required much patience and enduring considerable shouting from my boy. Nothing wrong with his lungs! I settled him into a natural sleep, finally, let him drop into a sedated sleep, then Shannon and I left him to the staff and went away for breakfast for an hour (mid-town market, La Loma, I had huevos con chorizo, she huevos rancheors (with green sauce and beans and rice).
Alas, my son woke up at some point when were gone and the nurse had to snuggle and settle him, which she did, but not without it taking a little time, so they weren't done by the time we came back and I had to sit there on the glider and snuggle him myself for 30 minutes or so. We also narrowly avoided an unnecessary scare.
So this test puts a sensor on his forehead, then one by each ear. As I understand it, the machine can measure the differences in brain activity near each sensor and thus measure how well the brain is detecting each sound. They then stick little sound emitters in each ear and can control the kind of sound (range, speed, and volume). At any rate, with the "click-test," his right ear got to 25 db which is essentially normal, and his left ear (which is, visually, the crinkly one) to 30 db, which signifies mild hearing loss. I'm not quite sure why they call it "loss," but they do, implying the former possession of something now lost. I think of it as having reduced hearing ability, but perhaps that sounds too pejorative. At any rate, the audiologist (while we were gone) then went to do a nerve test, where she can put sounds into the brain in a way that bypasses the ear canals and any congestion or fluid that might be blocking the sound (she had tested the ear drums earlier and noted that the left ear drum wasn't resonating quite as well as the right, leading to the conclusion that there was still fluid in that ear, which matched our E.N.T. doctor's thoughts). So she put the nerve device on, hit go, and nothing ... no brain response ... raised the volume ... no brain response, and she started to gear herself up to tell the parents, that's us, that our son had nerve-related hearing loss, non-medically treatable, and that we'd have to get hearing aids and deal with this forever.
Except then she asked her assistant (a coordinator thinking about nursing school who was pitching in for the day) whether she could feel anything in her fingers while holding the nerve-sound device. She could not. It was broken. At this point we arrived and got to witness Nico's brain responding to sounds down to 15 db when applied directly to the nerve.
So the upshot is pretty good news. He probably has some congestion in his ears. His basic equipment (and brain) are dealing with sounds just fine. We'll need to get tubes, likely, or loaner hearing aids (to turn up the gain a little) for a few months as his ears grow, because we don't want to let things be too muffled for him as we move towards speech. He can hear us when we speak to him, but things aren't going to be all that clear, especially quieter sounds.
Everyone we meet in the hearing business praises our Ear-Nose-Throat doctor to the skies, especially as a doctor for children, so hooray for that. We'll just follow his recommendation (we like him too. And he's from Chicago, I think, so should have a good reference for us).
In other news, my son has found his toes (they are so neat!) and his daddy's mouth. When I hold him on my chest and talk, he reaches his upper hand up to play with my lips and beard, staring wonderously at them, and trying to figure it all out.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-27 04:24 pm (UTC)having nephews and a niece, i can say that the best parts of their early years were the moments of discovery. both of themselves, with/of me, and their surroundings. now that they're older (with a new one to mess up the things!)these things still ROCK!
i'm procrastinating doing school work, what with it being a hazy and lazy sunday.....and no baseball on tv to watch.
**sigh**
happy belated, and see you in about 5 weeks.
d.