Today was Miss Kat's one month follow up MAPing. We had to drive 2 hours in a crazy blizzard to get to the audiologist. We really didn't want to drive that far in the snow, but we knew that if we cancelled we wouldn't get a new appointment until the new year, so we borrowed a truck with 4 wheel drive, bundled up and headed out!
We had a lot to accomplish at this appointment. We needed to measure more NRI's, retest her T-levels, do a booth test, and a speech discrimination test. It was going to be a long drive followed by a hard day!
Miss Kat did amazing. She was very patient for the NRI testing and it was exactly whatever the audiologist wanted. All I know was that there was a diagonal line, and he was pleased! She also did great for her T-level testing. We had a long discussion about why so many audiologists don't do T-levels (in fact, AB doesn't pay for the time it takes, and they have a whole programming system that sets them for you) and why he does. And THAT is why we drive so far to see him!
So, next was the booth test. This is the first test since Miss Kat was activated. We turned off her aid and started with the high frequencies. The audiologist started with a very quiet, very high frequency sound. Miss Kat dropped the coin in her "piggy bank". HUH? She heard that??? I was dumbfounded! I looked up at the audiologist through the glass, wide eyed with my mouth gaping open. He played the tone again, and she popped the next coin in. I looked at the audiologist and mouthed "She heard that?!?! Are you kidding me??? I'm not sure I heard that!" He continued to play the tones and Miss Kat heard so much more than I could have ever imagined!
The audiologist walked in the room and handed me Miss Kat's audiogram. I was shocked. Miss Kat was hearing at between 25-15 db across all frequencies! The audiologist told me his final goal is to get CI users to be able to hear around 25-30 db and after one months Miss Kat was already doing better than that! She is at 15 db for 500, 1000, and 4000 hz. Wow, that's even high frequency hearing, imagine that!
I knew that the CI was going to improve the clarity of the signal Miss Kat was getting, and that she could eventually get better results than she was getting from her aids, but after less than a month, and to be getting this level of results? I never expected that!
