Testing Today

Delyn had the ABR test today, and everything came back great.  So, no hearing loss.  That's good news.  Now we've ruled out a reason for his speech delay, and we can move on to his evaluation on October 5.  For anyone who has to schedule their little one for this test, it was really pretty stress-free.

Delyn HATES doctors.  He doesn't like anything about it.  So, I was feeling pretty stressed out before we went, knowing that not only were they going to have to assess him before the test, but we were going to have to give him a sedative and get him to go to sleep (and stay asleep) for the actual test.

They asked that he be brought in as drowsy as possible, so I kept him up as late as I could last night, which was 1:30am.  I woke him up at 8:15am, changed his diaper, put on his elmo slippers, and we left for the appointment.  They saw us pretty much right away, and they had to look in his ears and weigh him and stuff. That was the bad part.  Delyn hated it, and screamed and cried the whole time.  They administered the sedative via syringe, and that was pretty traumatic as well.  BUT, he took all of the medicine, and settled down pretty quickly.   They left us alone in the darkened room, and I rocked him and walked around with him until he fell asleep, which took about 30 minutes.  Once he was asleep, the audiologist connected three electrodes to his head (one on his forehead, and one behind each ear), and put teeny tiny headphones in each ear.  He conducted the test, and everything was great.  We woke Delyn up, and he was awake long enough for me to put him in the stroller, then he was fast asleep again.  He slept all the way home, and then slept for three more hours after we got home!

The Audiologist was really nice (and he happens to be married to a speech therapist!), and said that he was going to put in a referral for us for ECI.  I let him know that we had an appointment at the Childrens Learning Institute in October, and he thought that was a great idea.   I'm so glad I had done some research before we went, because I was able to undertand what he was talking about!

So, we know he can hear.  Now, we can move one step closer to getting him the help that he needs.