Big day today: Daniel got his first pair of loaner hearing aids! I went into the day with some anticipation but trying to keep it fairly low key. I had a vague idea of what to expect and yet no idea what to expect at all as far as results go. I knew we were going to set them conservatively, between our uncertainty of whether his loss is fluctuating and the fluid on his left ear that we will be correcting next week, plus of course just wanting to start conservatively so as not to scare the little guy!

He did quite well for the ladies, being quite a happy and content little guy going with the flow. He wasn’t too happy with his left ear having stuff stuck in it, but once it was there he didn’t seem to mind. His left ear is still coming back dull, which means most likely the fluid is still there and we will be needing surgery on Tuesday to put tubes in.

It was quite amazing to see some of his first reactions to sound. He took it pretty stoically, at least until we turned both of them on at once. The right one was set a bit high at first for him, and having both on was a little much. Oh, the frowns! Of course, the frowns meant he was hearing. Hearing! A voice!

Yes, he hears voices. That was more than I wanted to hope or expect! The low range he was showing response to, with his aids on, was around 50 dB. This means he probably hears a little less than that, but he responded at that level consistently. Smack dab in the middle of the speech banana (the range and frequency of speech on an audiogram).

To celebrate, tonight we played peek a boo (Eric joined in too, “peek you baby!”), read a few books with Eric, and generally had some fun. We go back on the 25th to see how things are going, especially after the surgery, and move forward from here. It’s a step in the right direction – a big one.

Green molds!