Great News!

On January 30th Emily had some repeat hearing testing and CT scans done at Dell Children's Medical Center.  The hearing test was another ABR (auditory brainstem response)--the same she's had done 2 other times to diagnose her specific hearing loss.  This 3rd test was just to follow up and make sure she's had no change or progression of her loss.  She has not!  Praise God that her hearing loss is stable at a mild-moderate loss in both ears at this time.  Though we would of course have welcomed a divine healing of her ears, we were very pleased do find out that it has remained stable and so she should still respond well to amplification with hearing aids. 

The CT scan was done for two reasons.  One-to look at the structure of her inner ear.  This was to see if there were any abnormalities that might point to either a cause of her hearing loss or that might place her at increased risk of a progressive loss.  Two-to look at her brain again to see if there were any signs of calcifications from CMV (a virus she tested positive for back in September that she was likely born with--it can cause a range of symptoms including hearing loss and we've seen specialists to get her cleared for many of them.  See this post if you haven't been following and want more details:  Emily Update).  All CT scans were NORMAL!  Again, Praise God!

As I'm writing this, I now can't remember if I ever posted that we saw the pediatric opthamologist earlier in January also.  That visit also gave us good news--no signs of damage to her retinas and normal eyesight for her age at this time!  Praise God!

Do you catch the theme here?  Praise God!  We are very thankful to have continued good results from all the medical visits and tests we've encountered with her so far.

You may be wondering why her tests were done at the hospital? Both the ABR and CT require a very still child.  Getting a 6 month old to hold still is just about impossible, so both tests require sedation.  Her earlier ABRs could be done while she was sleeping, but as children get older it gets harder to do this and get accurate results.  Both tests could be done separately with light sedation with gas or oral medication.  But since we did both at the same time (this was our choice in order to limit the number of times she had to be sedated) she required a light general anesthesia.  Which meant going through day surgery.  Not a huge deal, just lengthy and expensive.  My only complaint was the apparent 3 attempts it took to start her IV.  She still has little bruises on her hands.  But thankfully she was already asleep when they did that part so it didn't bother her and really, I do understand from a technical point of view how hard it is to get a successful stick on chubby little babies. 

She did great.  She was such a charmer with all the staff she came into contact with--she smiled, and laughed, and aah-gooed at them.  She was apprently the life of the party when they were getting her settled in the OR.  She cracked us up waking up in recovery.  She looked awake and acted completely drunk--no muscle tone, head lagging but with a huge grin on her face. She'd smile and try to grab at us but had no coordination.  She tried to eat, but again, no coordination so milk just dripped out of her mouth. Then as she really came to, she got ticked off.  Typical post anesthesia cranky baby.  She was fussing and sleepy most of the rest of the day but pretty much back to her normal happy self the next day.  Again, very thankful that all went well and no complications with anesthesia.

Here's our girl all gowned up and ready to go!