October 12, 2011 - Did You See Her Reaction?

Madison had her initial appointment with the staff at the NYU Medical Implant Center.  This is already the fourth hospital in NYC that she has visited in her 4 months of existence.  This appointment (along with several others) had been made about 7 weeks ago... The plan is to meet with their audiology team three times over the next few months, then with the surgeon in December.  The staff was extremely nice and answered our questions and tried to address all of our fears.  The best part of the visit was getting Madison exposed to the sound booth for the first time.  Madison sat on mommy's lap in a small room where sounds were emitted and daddy was across the window pane with the audiologist.  The audiologist said to daddy, "Did you see her reaction?"  Daddy's response, "Umm...no."  The audiologist noted that Madison eyes moved the slightest bit.  However, as the audiologist increased the decibel level - sure enough daddy saw Madison react to sound!  It was great to see her startle.  The audiologist noted that Madison was able to hear sound between 70 - 100 decibels at lower frequencies with her hearing aids.  This is nowhere near conversation levels, but it does infer that she (hopefully) has an auditory nerve and can still be a candidate for an implant.  Our next visit at NYU will be the middle of November.  This will consist of a follow up testing in the sound booth and a CT-scan (to determine if Madison's inner ear structure will allow for an implant).  This was one of the better days we have had in a quite some time.