About five weeks ago my sweet Zane brought home a note from school saying he had failed 2 hearing tests given at the school and that I needed to call the district to schedule a hearing test with the audiologist.
About a week later we met with Candi Brown the audiologist for the Nebo school district. She did several tests on Zane and the results were that he has mild to moderate hearing loss in his right ear. He hears perfectly out of his left ear. She asked Zane if he could hear better out of one ear than the other and he said, "yes, I hear better out of my left ear." I felt so bad, I had no idea he had hearing issues but apparently he knew he did. Candi thought his hearing loss was conductive-meaning the loss occurs when there is a problem conducting sound waves anywhere along the route through the outer ear, tympanic membrane (eardrum), or middle ear. She recommended that I take him to his ENT to get his opinion and find out what our options are.
On Monday we went to his ENT, the Audiologist there did several hearing tests on Zane. The results were similar to Candis except this audiologist felt the loss was a sensorineural loss, meaning there is a problem with his nerves causing the hearing loss. After seeing the audiologist, we saw Olivia, Dr. Riddle's Nurse Practitioner. She offered to put Zane on steroids to see if that would help his hearing loss but I declined--the steroids would only help if the hearing loss had been recent and I really don't think it was.
From here our plan of action is to return to the ENT in November to repeat the hearing test. If the results are the same as they were on Monday--showing sensorineural loss then they want to do a procedure where they look at all his nerves from his ear to his brain. There is also talk of providing him with amplification (hearing aids).
I feel badly about not knowing anything was wrong with his hearing, especially since he knew about it. But, I am grateful there are things they can do to help him.
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