MRI

 MRI Day! I talked with Hailey over and over again how it all works. How she'll fall asleep and then a team of doctors and nurses will take her into a room, where I can't go into but will stay close by, where she'll have her brain and ears photographed. She felt good about it all.......UNTIL she heard a kid down the hall scream bloody murder. Then she was nervous. 

So I tried my best to calm her down. To talk her nerves down by joking how she's such a lucky girl to be wearing her PJ's. :-)

But then 2 nurses came in and then the tears starting coming. She realized that the screams where from kids getting their IV's. So I did the best thing I could do..... cry with her. I held her, talked to her but I still shred a few tears. I think hearing your kid cry is the worse sound in the world. 

But after the nurses left and we had a moment alone she felt alittle better. One nurse came in and let her pick a prize from their treasure box.  She picked a make up set that went well with her new bumble bee accessories.

Not even an IV can stop my daughter from beautifying herself. :-)

So after waiting a couple of hours she was giving the medication that knocked her out. It was so sweet. I held her hand and right before she fell asleep she told me "Momma I love you" and before I could reply with an "I love you" she was asleep. But both the nurse and I were teary eye from her sweet gesture.

After her MRI she slept for an hour, ate a Popsicle and then we were able to come home. The results were sent to her specialist. So we waited :-(

But we got the call from the specialist that she has a small cochlear. 

photo and info from kidshealth.org

She was born with it and there's nothing that caused it. And after a few web searches here's what I learned:

The ear is made up of three parts, and sound for a person who has normal hearing passes through all three on the way to the brain. The outer ear is made up of the outer, visible part of the ear and the ear canal.

When a person is exposed to a sound, the outer ear captures the sound vibration and sends it through the ear canal to the middle ear, which consists of the eardrum and three tiny bones. The sound vibration then causes motion in the three tiny bones, which makes the fluid in the cochlea move. The motion of the fluid stimulates the hair cells, which are thousands of tiny hearing receptors inside the cochlea. The hair cells bend back and forth and send electrical signals to the hearing nerve, and the hearing nerve then carries these signals to the brain, where they're interpreted.

 And since her cochlear is too small it doesn't pass the vibration onto the nerve. So all the sounds and speech she hears is distorted. 

So the doctor wants to test out a hearing aid first. She'll get a loaner from the doctors office to see if it helps. Since hearing aids helps amplify sounds it might not helps since her sounds will be loudly distorted. But one thing at a time. 

In all of this Hailey has been such a champ. She's fully informed on everything and is fully on board to all these doctor appointments and hearing aids. She's aware of her ear so she's embracing the fact that her ear was born "broken". She just amazes me.