All's Quiet on the Eastern Front

So, I took Dane in to get a referral for hearing, and they did a simple hearing test, you know, the one where you raise your hand if you hear the tone in your ear, and according to that he hears fine. So, perhaps I'm just a little overly paranoid. Although the doctor did make a few comments that were not true, like a child who has no problem with speech hears just fine. Totally wrong. Anyways, perhaps I'll just let it go and stop worrying. I have noticed that as Dane gets older his mumbling is not as bad and he doesn't say "huh?" as much. Most likely it is nothing.
Last night I spent the night at the hospital with Alex. Who'd of thought that I'd be sleeping at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Weird. He was just having a sleep study done so he can get back on his CPAP machine. And, no doubt, the test showed apnea. No surprise. Already knew this, just needed another sleep study so he could have the correct pressures on his machine. I hate staying at the hospital, espcially if you are NOT the patient becuase your sleeping conditions are even worse! A fold out chair that you cannot fully stretch out on. I guess I know what Todd felt like staying at the hospital with me after I had the children.
Seth seems to be getting so much more aware of his surroundings and doing so many new things. He was in his walker today and watched me go out the kitchen door, go to the garage, and come back in the house. So he heads to the kitchen door and is like running into it trying to figure out how he can get out too! He is so cute!
Alex is at a campout for Scouts with Todd tonight. There is a flash flood watch in effect in the area they are camping. I hope all goes well for them.
We've been having so much fun with Sarah and Ed and their children. It's always great catching up on old times and all, but it's even better when you find their still strong in the gospel! Even more reason to rejoice! Better close for now as I've been up since five a.m. Oh, did I mention we visited the thrift store today? Very fun.

I think I'll side with the Speech Teacher on this one!

Today a Speech Teacher came to visit and do her evaluations on Seth. She is very nice and will be a lot of fun to have around helping to teach us to communicate with Seth. How we'll communicate with Seth is still up in the air as we need to figure out if he's really hearing us or not. His last ABR showed that he has severe to profound hearing loss. With his hearing aids, he'll be able to hear some speech, but not all as hearing aids can only amplify so much. Here's the very encouraging news. She listened to Seth's hearing aids and thought that they weren't set at the right settings. For as little as he can hear, they should be amplifying a lot more than what she was hearing from them. With that being said she also was very surprised at the responses she was getting from him. She commented that with hearing loss as bad as he is suppose to have, he shouldn't be responding the way he does. He has startled several times from unexpected noises in the room! He was sleeping in his swing and Karsten came running in yelling something and Seth startled, in his sleep! I don't think I've ever seen that. And my sister told me tonight that he did the same thing when someone shut the door! We are so excited to see this! And in the speech teacher's opinion, as much as audiologists swear that ABR's are very accurate, she has had clients that out perform what the ABR's are saying. So, we see an audiologist in September and she is going to come with me! I've always felt that Seth could hear better than what the tests were saying, but thought that perhaps it's only wishful thinking. I know he'll never hear perfect, but the more he can hear, the better. Even if we still have to supplement with signing, the more verbal conversation we can get out of him, the better!
On the same hearing note, I'm going to have Dane's hearing tested. Perhaps he is just fine. But the more I've talked to audiologists and speech therapists, the more I wonder if he's got some mild hearing problems. I always thought that it was just who Dane was, his mumbling and his use of the word, "huh?" all the time. I just thought he needed to speak up and pay attention! After finding out that these are signs of hearing loss, I thought it can't hurt just to have him tested. So, we'll see. Tomorrow I go in for a consult with the doctor to have a hearing test ordered. If Dane does have any amount of hearing loss, which I really hope he doesn't, than I'll have all the kids tested, just to be sure. Kate and Karsten I'm not really worried about, but I'd be more suspicious of Emily and perhaps Alex. Anyways, call me paranoid, but oh well.
Alex has a sleep study tomorrow night at Walter Reed. Yippee! I get to sleep in the comfy hospital tomorrow night! I've got a book to read, so that's the only thing I'm looking forward to.
Now, off to the struggle I'm having with Alex's schooling. Argh.