Hearing
Back in January I spoke of my concerns for Sabrina’s hearing. I felt she was not hearing everything and was told by others that she was being a NICU baby and tuning out. My concerns had not diminished since then and since no one would agree with me I figured I was wrong. I wasn’t.
After pushing the issue we brought her to St. Johns for a test last week. This would be the day that tooth number two decided to start its push for daylight. So we had an unhappy baby who did not feel much like cooperating with an audio-visual test. The tech told us the test was inconclusive and asked us to schedule a second test. If that test did not work we would need to schedule a Auditory Brain-stem Response (ABR) test. We went in for the second test today. While it did not go perfectly, we learned from the Tympanometry test that her ear drums are responding normally, so there is no fluid in the way or an infection. The auditory-visual test was not perfect but when the tech came out of the booth she said she was feeling that Sabrina was not able to hear below 70 decibels. She confirmed the opinion when she noticed the previous tech had written a note in Sabrinas chart saying while the first test was inconclusive, she felt that Sabrina was not hearing below 70 decibels.
Two qualified techs reaching the same conclusion separately seems to be a valid answer. We have scheduled her for the ABR test in four weeks but I am not willing to wait four weeks doing nothing. We have a call in to Sabrina’s doctor, and I spoke to the nurse and explained our position on this. She has called St. Johns to try and get the test moved up. We have also asked for the next step, is there a social worker or organization we should contact. Thanks to my previous manager who’s wife works with hearing impaired children we have a contact name and number at St. Josephs Institute for the Deaf. I have not called her yet, Heather and I are taking a day to get our heads together before moving forward, this gives our pediatricians office time to see what they can do for us as well. More updates later.