Back to Where We Started

This past Wednesday James had a routine ABR done. An ABR is an Auditory Brain Response test done for hearing. They're able to record the brain's response to sound. James had one or two of these done when he was initially diagnosed with hearing loss. The new audiologist here in Fargo thought it would be a good idea to have one done now because we're in a new place and it's been awhile since we've done one. I wasn't expecting much from it, just for them to say he has a mild-moderate hearing loss-what we've thought all along. Boy was I wrong. I guess you could actually say I was devastated by the results. Here we've using James' hearing aids religiously and thinking that he hears us when we talk to him, but he doesn't. Or he might. We just don't know. The testing of his ear was pretty normal. His ear works the way it should, but the brain resonded to nothing. Nothing. That is far from what I thought. They think he might actually have Auditory Neuropathy which is a term we heard when we first started working through James' hearing problems in November 2008. I talked about it a little bit on James Caringbridge site and since they diagnosed him with a hearing loss and then fitted him with hearing aids I haven't thought much of it. So Auditory Neuropathy...essentially James' ears work fine but the sounds doesn't make it to his brain or it gets jumbled and doesn't know what to do with it. There are definately times when we're positive James has heard us...but that would fit with this diagnosis as well...his brain at times may actually make the connections it needs to and he hears fine. They're strongly reccommending James get cochlear implants. I'm waiting for a call from the audiologist. They wanted to go over James' previous hearing tests and chat about it. Our options for cochlear implants are University of Minnesota and Mayo in Rochester. We'll wait to hear what they reccommend and go from there (and see if insurance makes us go to Sioux Falls).

I feel like we've lost the past 3 years in terms of James' hearing. Could he talk by now if we picked this up sooner? Would he still be nonverbal because of his Cerebral Palsy? Is he nonverbal because of his Cerebral Palsy or because he can't hear? I guess all we can do from here on out is start fresh and focus hard on getting his implants and his speech therapy after.