July 26 – The Sound of Silence

Today was the day Madison had the ABR Diagnostic hearing test at Cornell Presbyterian.  She must be sleeping for this test as well.  Since it is more involved, she needed to be sleeping for 2 hours.  If we weren’t able to complete the test naturally, the test would be repeated using sedation.  Of course, we wanted to avoid this at all costs.  Madison behaved and she slept the entire length of the test! Tiny electrodes were placed on her head again and connected to a computer system which measured her brain’s response to different clicking sounds.  These sounds were played at 3 different frequencies and ranged from 60 decibels to 120 decibels.  Normal hearing ranges from 0 – 20 decibels.  The audiologist allowed 3 hours for the test.  Since we started on time, she was able to analyze the results and share them with us in her office later that afternoon.  Normally she would have us return the following day.  We were very anxious to hear the results and glad we did not have to wait one more day.  My mother was with us for the day so she was able to join us for the appointment.  The audiologist brought the four of us into a room and sat us down at her table.  Before she was able to say anything tears started rolling down my cheeks and my heart sunk.  Sitting in front of me was a piece of paper with Madison’s name written on top and a red line was written in across the bottom graph with the word PROFOUND.  The results showed that Madison has profound hearing loss in both of her ears.  Basically, if she is sitting outside on a runway, and an airplane takes off, she MIGHT be able to hear it.  So many questions were running through my head… WHY, WHY, WHY? Was this really happening to us? The audiologist spoke with us for a good hour discussing what her hearing condition means for us.  I couldn’t tell you what she said because all sorts of thoughts were running through my mind.  All along we had been praying for miracle… than realized we had already been given one.