Of course...

There is always something. Something to frustrate us, to beat us down.
Today, it was Ellie's hearing test. We spent a while with the audiologist, in the sound proof room, while Jakob was incredible at keeping quiet so that Ellie could focus. They played various sounds, and if she heard the sound, reacted, and turned to the source, she was rewarded by a light up puppet with bells and clappers. I

It took only moments before I knew that my intuition about her hearing had been right, and that something was up.

Then they came in to say that Ellie has a substantially higher than usual threshold for hearing. She starts hearing at normal conversational level. She doesn't hear whispers. Bass tones can be played at lower levels, but high frequencies need to be much louder. They used a device to play directly to her inner ear. Better, but not perfect.

We went to a room where they measured the workings of her middle ear. They plug a little device into the ear, add some air, and it should move the ear drum, such that the movements are recorded on a graph. I think it's called a typanogram. The audiologist tested it on herself, first, to show me how it worked. Then she tested Ellie... her eardrums barely move at all, all she recorded was an almost flat line.

The purpose of the middle ear, is to move sound to the inner ear.

The middle ear connects to the back of the throat and nose through the Eustachian tube. The Eustachian tube is the auditory openings that we open when we yawn or swallow.There are muscles along the tubes which allow them to open.

One theory is that her muscles don't open the tubes in her ear. The middle ear is generally air-filled. The Eustachian tubes regular pressure. In people with hypotonia, the tubes don't work properly, and the air gets used up. A vacuum forms in the middle ear, and subsequently it fills with fluid, making it very difficult for sound to travel, or the ear drum to move.

 Essentially, Ellie hears like normal people would, under water.

Hearing affects so much of development. Speech, balance...  we have an appointment with the ENT clinic in a month from now, and it's their job to figure out what exactly is causing her hearing loss, and hopefully provide us with some remedy.

For now, we have to remember that she can't hear us if we're not talking at a normal level, close to her. The audiologist recommended signing with Ellie (which we were already starting to do), as well as being more expressive, and animated.

Ah, if it's not one thing, it's another!
Now we have a 2 month wait to see ENT again.