From 35 to 25

Butters loves his afternoon stroll!

We thought it was the greatest thing last month when Butters got audiogram testing results in the 35 decibel range.  You see, after so many months last year of seeing results hover around the 75-80 decibel range sharply dipping down into the 90 and 100 decibel range every month, it became very apparent that the situation was becoming much worse than when we first began this "adventure."

As a parent, you begin to experience a sharp, steady decline of your own.  Primarily, you feel sadness and anger.  Then, throw in extreme fatigue with a little hopelessness stirred into the batter, and sprinkle with defeat.  All of the work you put into language and auditory nerve stimulation, and then you see an audiogram with results demonstrating that your child wouldn't even be able to hear a freight train if it barreled through the front door and into your living room.  

That is why we have been over the moon today after Butters' three month check- up and received an audiogram with results in the 25 decibel range!  We never thought that could have been possible.

Some of the sounds he is currently working on include:

"Ga Ga",  "Guh Guh",  "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah," "Mom Mom," and this horrible, hacking fake cough that he is loving right now.

I wish that I could report that he is actually attempting real words, but I think it's a little too early yet for all of that.  He certainly tries to carry on a conversation when you talk to him.  When we got home from Chapel Hill this afternoon, he waddled over to his dad and launched into, "Ga Ga, Guh Guh, Dah Guh, Ba Ca Ca," with a very emphatic expression on his chubby face.

We also met with our ENT today to officially begin Butters' left ear surgery!  

Now I am really getting anxious and cannot wait for this surgery to be behind us and to really start working harder than we ever have before.