Hearing Test

Last week I received a letter in the mail from the state saying that they have record that Tanner failed his newborn hearing test in his left ear.

I was already aware of this and was told that he still had a bunch of gunk in it from birth and they were going to do another one.

This was before his diagnosis of his heart condition.

After his surgery at CHLA, they did another hearing test and he passed. I remember it said in his discharge papers that they wanted him to come back for another hearing test.

I talked with our pediatrician about it and he said that it must have been a California state thing, and that he didn't need another one if he had already passed if we didn't want to.

So at that point I chose to let it go and never thought another thing about it until I received this letter.

Between this time I had learned that medications that Tanner was on, as well as his extended ICU stay could have caused hearing loss. So I decided to do a follow up hearing test just to see.

We already know he can hear since he talks, mimics us and freaks out at really loud sounds. I wanted to make sure he didn't have any minor hearing loss that could affect anything and be able to do what we needed to do as early as possible to help him. And also for peace of mind.

We went and had his hearing test today.

The lady had me sit in this little room with Tanner on my lap. there were different things on the walls that made sound, lit up and moved to get his attention.

At one point of the test I was getting nervous. There were sounds that alternated on the left and right that sounded like crickets and applause. They were so quiet I could barely hear them, and I could see Tanner was not responding to them at all.

Once the test was done and the lady came and let us out of the room I mentioned that some of those were so quiet! She said that she actually turned those ones down even lower than she usually does because he was doing SO well with the rest of the test. Phew!

She did a couple other test by sticking some ear buds in his ears and we were done.

She said that he did so well, that she was actually a little impressed.

She mentioned that she bet it was so nice to have boring results for once.

I couldn't agree more.