Casey’s ear tubes were successfully placed this morning. She was able to get the same anestesiologist as she had for her last procedure. Dr. Ayad is so good with her and we just feel so much better knowing he is the one watching for suctioning and such. The ear doctor told us that she removed a lot of fluid from both ears and that they were both inflamed, one more than the other. After placing the tubes audiology reran her hearing test. Audiology told us that she still shows mild to moderate hearing loss in both ears. They explain it as though what she hears is a muffled version of what we hear. For the loud area we live in, that may not be such a bad thing. They want to rerun the hearing test again after HBOT. Even if she still shows some loss at that point they may not recommend an aide, we will have to just wait and see. It’s possible that she is picking up the sound, but that due to the damage in her brain she is just not able to fully register what she hears.
Casey is going in Monday for what is calling a SPECT scan, or functional brain imaging. It is the latest in showing brain activity as well as blood flow / perfusion. We will mainly be using this to tell us (objectively) the effect hyperbaric, stem cell, or other therapies in the near future are having on her brain function. We will repeat the test after HBOT and can compare the 2 to see the increased level of activity.
We will spend the rest of this week recovering from today’s procedure and getting used to the new PT and new PT gear. Then ramp up for another busy week to follow.
Next week we start HBOT, we have the SPECT, Casey has her 6 month birthday and 6 month pediatrician appointment, more shots 🙁 and the usual GI appointment and PT sessions. We also have OT coming by for the initial eval. After OT comes to evaluate we should start to get OT to the house at least once a week. So anyway, another long week for baby next week.