Livie's Audiologist appointment

Sunday evening Josh, Olivia and I made the trek down to Chapel Hill again for Olivia's audiologist appointment on Monday. We had dinner at the Melting Pot near our hotel. I've not been in forever and after seeing my friend Misty's pics, I had the urge to go. It also helped that we were down 2 kids! My favorite was the chocolate peanut butter fondue... The graham coated marshmallows dipped in chocolate were amazing! Olivia loved the fruit, without chocolate of course. We headed to our hotel afterwards and went swimming. Livie just laughed, splashed and kicked. Even though we are making the trip for medical necessity, it's fun spending time with just her. She gets Mommy and Daddy's undivided attention and loves it.

Today we stayed at the hotel for a while and then went to the mall to shop around and eat before her appointment. We kept hoping she would take a nap in her stroller but that wasn't happening. As soon as she got in the car she passed out and luckily squeezed in a 30 minute nap.

When we arrived, we were taken back to the sound booth. I stayed in the sound booth with Olivia while Josh went into the testing area with our audiologist. Ms. Hannah that works with Olivia through the REACH program met us as well! It was great to see her in person. I would recommend Chapel Hill to anyone dealing with pediatric hearing loss. It's worth the drive and hotel stay to know that we are in the best hands!

I have been worried that Olivia's hearing had changed because for about 2 weeks I couldn't get her to respond to /s/ and /sh/ when doing Ling sound testing. I didn't voice my fears to Josh for awhile because I didn't want to alarm him or contemplate that her loss had progressed. I even tried to take her one of our local schools to run tympanometry to see if she had fluid in her middle ear to no avail. So I've been a bit anxious about today's appointment.

Olivia was a champ during testing. Her ear drums looked great and she had good movement on her tympanogram testing; indicating no fluid in her middle ear. During booth testing our audiologist was able to get 7 different frequencies in BOTH ears, as well as bone conduction testing. She was very happy to get all this information because often they may only get a couple frequencies in one ear; it depends on how well the child conditions to the testing and cooperates.

Olivia's hearing hasn't changed...which is wonderful news! We had her hearing aids reprogrammed for the new frequency information and had new ear molds made as well. Thankfully her ears are starting to slow down with the rapid growth and her molds are lasting much longer. We ordered purple sparkly molds this time :)