Difficult results

Last Tuesday, Chloe and I went to Blythedale to have her hearing test. She was sedated for the test so that the doctor could monitor her brain activity and really see how her ears were functioning and processing sounds at different frequencies.

Chloe’s hearing has been a mystery to us as sometimes we have thought that she has responded to sounds while other times when a loud or startling noise would be presented, she would not stir. I have always heard that when a person loses one sense, the other senses are almost hypersensitive. So when we walk into Chloe’s room and we think she wakes because she hears us, is it really that she hears our steps or that she smells our scent?

Well (deep breath), the test results came back quite abnormal. It showed that Chloe has profound loss in her left ear and mild loss in her right ear. Unfortunately, this loss is presented at a very high frequency. From what I understood from the words and charts presented, Chloe can somewhat hear an airplane or the telephone ring but at a sound that would almost present as a whisper to a normal hearing person.

We have made a second appointment with another doctor, an ENT who works through Cornell. He will be able to give Chloe a second test that will look further and check for damage to her cochlea. If these tests also show abnormalities in her ears, then we will have to move forward accordingly. Our tentative plan for now will be to have Chloe fitted for hearing aids for both ears to amplify sounds and see if this will help her to make sense of her world.

Hard news which deep down I sort of knew but kept quiet about. Almost as if I didn’t think it too much or say it out loud, then it wouldn’t come true. We move forward and Reth and I have already asked our speech therapist to begin teaching us what signs she knows and we will look into a sign language class she had suggested. Signs worked for Olivia before she could speak so we are hopeful that Chloe will be able to engage with us through this form of communication. We just need to work and find out more on her vision abilities to make sure this will make sense for her.

We will let you know as we find out more from this second test.

Much love,

Michelle, Rethier, Olivia and Chloe