HUGE News!!!

Miss Kat headed to the audiologist today. She hasn't been hearing as well as she should for the last couple of weeks, so her school audi put her in the booth, and the results were not great. She was hearing at 40 db in the lows...YIKES! So, Daddy and she took the long drive and got her tweaked. She is now back to hearing 15-25 db across the board!

While Miss Kat was in the booth they did her auditory discrimination testing and an unaided audiogram for her hearing aid ear. There was good news and bad news. The good news was that she scored 96% on her Nu Chips and Wipi tests. Not too bad! The bad news is that she has lost more hearing in her unimplanted ear. She is no longer a borderline CI candidate. (Stupid progressive loss, it really is never going to stop until she is at 120+ db....sorry, rant ended)

So, for a comparison I will post her unaided, unimplanted ear and her CI:

--   250hz   500hz   1000hz   2000hz   4000hz   8000hz
CI- 25 db   25 db    20 db      15 db     20 db     25 db 
Ear-50 db   70 db    90 db      90 db    105 db    90 db

That is a huge difference!

So, that brings me to the final, most exciting piece of news.....we have scheduled Miss Kat's bilateral surgery!! Her (tentative because of insurance issues) surgery date is May 19th! We are hoping to get her activated by June 15th because we are headed to CID for summer school! I am so happy that Miss Kat will be able to take advantage of this great opportunity with the benefit of two ear that hear well!!

We are excited and nervous but overall happy. It is so soon, but it needs to be. When we told Miss Kat she was a little worried. She very clearly remembers her last surgery. She said she was worried that it would hurt, and I explained that the doctor would give us medicine for the pain, and that if she hurt, I would give it to her. She also told me that she thought she wouldn't be able to sleep with the big bandage on her head. I told her that she could sleep on the other ear. (I think that she might have thought she was going to have a bandage on both ears, because we said "You'll have two CI's" not "You'll have ANOTHER, second CI, in the other ear". But she is clear on that now.) So, we went to the store and bought a "Hello Kitty" pillow and blanket and I told her that we will give it to her on surgery day (insert "Can I have (my) CI tomorrow?" "No" "WHY NOT??? I NEED my pillow!!" Argh...) So, now she seems to have her questions answered (except for why it isn't sooner) and she is at least willing, if not so excited.

We know this is for the best. She hears so much better with her CI than she ever did with her hearing aid (even when her loss was 20 sloping to 60db, so very long ago). It has open a whole new world of language to her. This is going to be stressful, and hard, but it will be totally worth it!