The Journey We Are On.....

This month marks 1 year since Ethan became dependent on a feeding tube. Ethan has eaten very little by mouth in months. Today he ate 4 oz of orange banana medley baby food for his afternoon snack. Although we know Ethan will most likely be dependent on his feeding tube for the rest of his life,  it was great to see him interested and tolerating more than a bite or two of food by mouth.

We've known for a long time that because Ethan has PBD-ZSD  his hearing loss would probably be progressive and that at some point hearing aids alone would not provide him with adequate access to sound. Ethan received his first set of hearing aids when he was just 4 months old. Over the last 3 years his hearing loss has been monitored and his hearing aids were turned up, then last year he got new stronger powered hearing aids and those were then turned up several times, but Ethan just didn't seem to be responding well to them. In November Ethan had another sedated ABR (hearing test) along with an MRI and a bunch of blood work. The ABR's results showed us that Ethan's hearing loss had gotten worse and it was now time to move forward towards a cochlear implant. So, following the ABR we began having all of Ethan's records sent to implant team at Carle Clinic for review so that the surgeon, audiologists, and speech language pathologists, etc. could determine if th...