Welcome summer and welcome routine doctor appointments, therapy sessions and re-evals! This is part of life and I have learned to embrace it as best as I can, luckily, Adele has absolutely NO trouble gaining fans everywhere she goes.
Today we had an Opthamologist appointment. This is the same waiting area as our ENT, so we are no stranger to this office building. Part of the time, Adele had her BAHA on. We had a lovely group of 7-10 year old sisters very politely ask "what is that head band for?". My standard response to this question when children ask is "it helps her hear better". Of course, Adele flashes the girls one of her HUGE smiles and starts waving and clapping so she immediately makes BFFs. We get called back to the office and since they needed to dilate her eyes, we got to go back to the waiting area to make more friends. Here we encountered a 2 year old blonde boy who was smitten with Adele. While attempting to hug her, he also got a smooch in! Who would have thought a first kiss would be in a waiting area of the Opthamologist's office?
Yesterday, Adele saw her friend Mindy, the Audiologist. Mindy did a behavioral hearing test which consists of Adele and I going into a sound booth, Adele distracted in a high chair playing with foam puzzle pieces, while I sit nearby for comfort. There is a window in front of the booth so Mindy could make visual contact with Adele. Mindy proceeded to talk to Adele through a microphone system and reward her by flashing Sponge Bob on one side and Crabby Patty on the other. Adele did very well for her age and we found that her hearing WITHOUT the BAHA has stayed the same. WITH the BAHA, she was able to get up to normal range in her right ear!!! (Note that Adele has borderline normal hearing in her left ear). So, how does this impact her speech? Essentially, it shouldn't, so any Speech Delay relates to other things such as her mouth muscles etc... Our Speech Therapist is evaluating her on Tuesday, so we'll hear more at that time. Of course, as we talked, Adele managed to convince Mindy that she was the cutest toddler on the planet with plenty of smiles and communication! I should mention that Adele has been gaining speech, but at a slower pace than her average peers.
Good news: Adele has AWESOME eyes. Optic nerves look normal and she no longer has a Nystagmus (twitching of the eyes). We only have to see her once a year!! Physical Therapist is reducing to once a month since she is monitoring Adele and Developmental Hearing and Speech will continue. Adele's 6 month annual review is coming up in a week and a half so we'll get more details at the meeting.
Love my 18qt! Time to pick up our big sister!
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