"Tommy Can You Hear Me?"

The pinball wizard may not have been able to hear, but OUR Tommy CAN hear us!

Today we had Tommy's post-tubes check-up and hearing screening and Tommy was found to be hearing in the normal range for his age group!  Hooray!!!

Here's the nitty gritty.  The first result we received was that Tommy's eardrums, which were not vibrating at all at our last hearing screening, were vibrating nicely today!  The eardrum and tiny hairs in his ears are doing their job, moving and transferring sounds to create meanings for those sounds in his brain.

Tommy's second results focused on what he is hearing.  Regular speech is done around 60 to 65 decibels.  Whispering is in the 20 decibel range, and sounds can range down to 0 decibels (which does not mean no sound, just very quiet sounds).  Tommy was responding to sounds down to the 20 decibel range.  Below that he wasn't responding too well to tones or white noises.  However, he did respond to speech down to 15 decibels.

There could be reasons other than hearing-loss as to why Tommy didn't respond to the quieter sounds.  Kids his age have a hard time maintaining focus and listening without distraction, especially to quiet sounds.  So although he was sitting and seemed to be listening intently, Tommy may have been having a hard time keeping his concentration focused on listening to the sounds, or he could even have stopped caring enough to respond to some of those quiet sounds.  Also, hearing testing can't be too specific for Tommy's age because they have to do the whole booth thing; he can't respond directly to specific tones administered straight into his ears by saying, "Yes, Doctor Shaw, I heard that high pitched beeping in my left ear."  So Tommy's final hearing verdict was that he hears in the "low" range of normal, but he IS IN normal ranges!  I feel like doing a jig!


EVEN if Tommy doesn't hear those quieter sounds and does have some hearing loss, he can hear normal speech down to a whisper, which means he can easily learn to talk.  And even better, he can be safe.  His safety was one of my greatest concerns.  What if he didn't hear me tell him to stop before putting a fork into a light socket?  What if he missed the sound of a car coming up the street?  But I know he can hear those things now, which means he is safer.  We will have his hearing re-tested in a year.  The doc says they can be a little bit more specific at that age, so we will know if he does have some kind of quiet tone hearing loss at that time.  For now, speech therapy to get him "caught up" is definitely on the docket for the months ahead. 

Considering that we were potentially looking at "profound hearing loss" following his last screening, I am full of joy at the news of this day.  Tommy can hear!  Over the past months I'd hear sounds I love: a lawnmower running on a summer evening, the Thunderbirds practicing overhead, my boys laughing together at some joke, birds calling to one another at sunrise, and I'd wonder if Tommy would ever have the pleasure of enjoying these sounds or finding sounds that he loved to hear of his own.  And now I know he will.  What a gift!

Our bodies are little miracles in action, the way they work, the way they heal.  I am so grateful for Tommy's strong, healthy little body.  I am grateful for modern medicine, once again in Tommy's life, that helped his ears to open up and hear.  When Dr. Shaw looked at Tommy's results and the results from the last hearing test, his tone of voice sounded a little surprised.  He said, "Honestly, tubes don't always work in cases like this (total failure in Tommy's previous screening), but in Tommy's case I am happy to say they did their part."  And I firmly believe prayer and grace played their part in fixing what was broken, my prayers along with all of yours.  So THANK YOU, from all of us, especially Tommy...who can hear.