Today we arrived at Camp Allen for our 1st ever Joni & Friends family retreat!! I have been eagerly awaiting this time away and my first thought upon arrival….I don’t ever want to leave.

The short term missionary (STM) assigned to Gideon couldn’t be more perfect and of course Laynie has already made friends with several STMs assigned to her age group.

They served us a delicious dinner, helped us unpack our car and after some time of worship, they let our kids spend time getting to know everyone in their groups. The night concluded with an ice cream social which naturally led to lots of jumping on bed for Laynie.

On the schedule for tomorrow- fishing for Laynie and swimming for Gideon. As for Kevin and I, we will be doing some giant swing thing after chapel and then maybe something really crazy…like a nap!!!

This is going to be the best weekend ever!!

Gideon’s hearing has gotten worse.

Please forgive me in advance, because what you are about to read is my very very very limited understanding of how all this works…

So a week ago, we took our son for another ABR; he gets one every six months because of his genetic disorder. ABR stands for Auditory Brain Repsonse and to put it simply, it is a hearing test where Gideon has to be sedated. The last time he had this test done was back in November and we were excited because his hearing results showed then to be stable- meaning that he had not lost any more hearing.

But that wasn’t the case this time around. Unfortunately, you can see from the results below, that Gideon’s hearing has gotten worse.

The picture on the left shows the results from November and next to it are his results from last week. The “O” represents his right ear and the “X” represents his left ear. So according to the this, he has lost some hearing in his left ear, but more significantly in his right.

Before the ABR, the audiologist always does a Tympanometry to make sure there is no fluid behind the ear drums, as this can effect the results. Because Gideon had been sick in April, the tympanometry showed that he did in fact have fluid in both ears. So going into the ABR, we knew that it would possibly show a loss, but the audiologist explained they have a way to account for that and if need be, to go around it.

Because the ABR results showed such a great amount of loss, they did what is called a Bone Conduction ABR. And here’s how I understood that test to work…. A vibrating device was placed behind Gideon’s ear. That piece vibrates the bones in the ear and by doing so it stimulates the cochlea, while bypassing the outer and middle ear (where the fluid is).

From my understanding, and the sympathy expressed by the doctors in the room, the BC ABR verified the results of the first ABR. Meaning that Gideon’s hearing has gotten worse.  🙁

So what’s next?

Well, we go back in 3 weeks to see if the fluid is gone. If not, the ENT wants to do tubes. In the meantime, they turned Gideon’s hearing aids WAY up and he seems to be loving them! He’s actually wearing them for hours at a time, which is unlike him.

Hopefully, at our next appointment we can discuss our options regarding a cochlear implant. If his right ear is as bad as the results show, Gideon should qualify (especially because of his diagnosis).

Until then, we appreciate your prayers that Gideon would not need tubes. We want a healthy boy especially going into the Summer. Gideon LOVES the pool and would be in the water every day if we let him.

So yesterday was kind of crazy. Gideon was pretty sick 2 weekends ago and we felt fortunate because it did not land us in the hospital like last October. Thanks to his prescribed solu-cortef, he seemed to get over what ever virus caused him a 104 fever; and within 2 days he perked up and was back to his usual self-stemming, like nothing had ever happened.

We did notice around Tuesday of last week he was struggling with some congestion, but it was clear and I figured it was probably just allergies (poor kids take after their mom in this regard). Unfortunately, the congestion seemed only to get worse and by yesterday morning, I was concerned by his cough. I sought counsel from a friend who is a nurse and after talking with her, I decided to page Gideon’s pediatrician and his endocrinologist. They suggested we visit the ER. And so we did.

We were down one vehicle because Kevin’s (ahem..old) car was still at the auto repair shop. So while I was waiting for him to get home in my car, I decided to go ahead and pack some overnight essentials complete with pillows… just in case.

After an IV, blood work, and a chest x-ray, they determined that he has an upper respiratory infection as well as an ear infection. Thankfully none of this required an overnight stay in the hospital! We were more than happy to come home.

The funny part about all this is that Kevin and I were scheduled to give our testimony at a church in Allen yesterday at 4 pm. We left Medical City Dallas at 3:30 pm, met my parents in the parking lot of Home Depot off Hwy 75, exchanged our car for theirs (so they could take the kids back to our house), and we pulled into that church parking lot on two wheels with 1 minute to spare.

Thankfully they had worship before we went on, so we had time to catch our breath and praise the Lord that Gideon’s 2nd visit to the ER was not near as bad as his first.