It is time to update everyone on the new things we learned about Ellie this week. I apologize to those that read this earlier. I messed up my draft somehow trying to edit pics into it so I am having to write it over. We went to Boise on Tuesday and had an all day doctor event. Our first appointment was with the Elks Hearing and Balancing Center. At this appointment we learned that Ellie has Bilateral Auditory Neuropothy. In simple terms, all of Ellie's mechanical parts of her ears work just fine, but in the middle of all the mechanics is the auditory nerve that signals to the brain to hear. Instead of clearness of sounds and words, she hears static with it. It is best described like you are trying to tune into a radio station and the speakers are not functioning correctly. The louder you turn it up, the worse the static gets. She may have good days or moments or bad days or moments. It will be quite interesting to see how this turns out since there is not really a great way to help people with this type of hearing loss. I am inserting an article we found that also might help describe it. "Auditory Neuropathy is a hearing disorder in which sound enters the inner ear normally but the transmission of signals from the inner ear to the brain is impaired. It can affect people of all ages, from infancy through adulthood. The number of people affected by Auditory Neuropathy is not known, but the condition affects a relatively small percentage of people who are deaf or hearing-impaired.
People with Auditory Neuropathy may have normal hearing, or hearing loss ranging from mild to severe; they always have poor speech-perception abilities, meaning they have trouble understanding speech clearly. Often, speech perception is worse than would be predicted by the degree of hearing loss. For example, a person with Auditory Neuropathy may be able to hear sounds, but would still have difficulty recognizing spoken words. Sounds may fade in and out for these individuals and seem out of sync. "
The next appointment was our first spina bifida clinic with Ellie. This is an incredible resource to the spina bifida community because we get to go to the Children's Specialty Center at St. Lukes and in one afternoon we meet with all of the specialists in one location. This saves us on days and hours of follow-up appointments to Boise to meet with all of Ellie's doctors. So while we were there we met with her pediatric orthopedist. He diagnosed Ellie with a weak left hip that easily displaces out of her socket. The only way to try to help her hip become stronger is to put her in a hip harness brace for 1 month to 3 months. Ellie will be in this brace for 23 hours a day. She is being fitted into it next Friday on the 12th of March. There is a possibility that the hip harness does not work because of her spina bifida so we will have to wait and see. We are praying that it will work! It has been a tough week, but eventually we will find our way through her newly diagnosed conditions and be ready to move on and help her with whatever we can. That is it for the update and hopefully all is well with everyone else! Oh, I almost forgot. Ellie also formed an umbilical hernia in the past week, but at least this is an easy fix compared to everything else. Thank heaven for easy fixes!

Hope you enjoy the new pics. Thanks to Katie Dalling Photography! We got some good ones!