Swinging!

I found out about a playground in our old neighbourhood that has some Taylor-friendly equipment. We headed over this afternoon and for the first time Taylor could enjoy a swing! She had a ride on it with her sister, then she flew solo on it for a while, kicking her legs happily. It was great! She even had a little spin on the merry-go-round!

A few things to report on lately. I had the opportunity of enjoying an afternoon last weekend with three amazing "special needs" moms. I feel very grateful to be able to connect with this group of gals. We all have girls around the same age, all with very complex, lifelong conditions. It wasn't about how difficult our lives are, we all understand that without it needing to be said, it was a very positive, supportive, and fun afternoon of caring and sharing. And understanding each other. These women, they get it, we live the same struggles of not walking or talking, not knowing what lies ahead in their future. But through all that we find, treasure and celebrate the little joys that come our way with our beautiful girls, and love them more than you can imagine.

Ever since Taylor was so sick back in January with the kidney and blood infections, we have seen quite a regression in her vocalizations. For much of the day Taylor is very quiet, not cooing nearly as much as she used to. When we last saw the Speech & Language Pathologist she put in a referral for Taylor's hearing to be evaluated.

We went to Hearing Clinic this week and the Audiologist did a few different tests. The first was a Pure Tone Threshold test which is a behavioural test used to measure hearing sensitivity. The audiologist sat in a room directly in front of Taylor behind glass and made different noises into a microphone that we could hear in either a speaker on the left or the right. Taylor's responses were probably supra threshold. The Audiologist wasn't comfortable making any assumptions on this test because it's very difficult to read Taylor for responses, especially without having observed her on a regular basis.

The second test was a Tympanogram, which tests the condition of the middle ear and the mobility of the eardrum. It showed good pressure in her right ear, but negative pressure in her left. This could possibly be due to the fact that Taylor has a bit of a cold right now, or it could indicate middle ear hearing loss.

The last test was an Otoacoustic Emissions test which measures an acoustic response that is produced by the inner ear (cochlea), which in essence bounces back out of the ear in response to a sound stimulus. The test is performed by placing a small probe that contains a microphone and speaker into the infant's ear. As the infant rests quietly, sounds are generated in the probe and responses that come back from the cochlea are recorded. Once the cochlea processes the sound, an electrical stimulus is sent to the brainstem. In addition, there is a second and separate sound that does not travel up the nerve, but comes back out into the infant's ear canal. This "byproduct" is the otoacoustic emission. The emission is then recorded with the microphone probe and represented pictorially on a computer screen. The audiologist can determine which sounds yielded a response/emission and the strength of those responses. If there is an emission present for those sounds that are critical to speech comprehension, then the infant has "passed" the hearing screen. So, there was an emission present in Taylor's left ear, but not in the right. This could be because Taylor's breathing was noisy (from her cold), or it could indicate inner ear hearing loss.

At the end of the day, the Audiologist reported that she can't rule out mild to moderate hearing loss due to Taylor's cold and the chance that it affected the results. So, we get to go back and do it all again in a month when she's better. I'm not going to make any of my own assumptions but the fact that she doesn't vocalize very much and that she really only shows response to loud noises has always concerned me to a certain extent.