So, today Samuel had a hearing test and follow-up at the ENT. For the last year or so (?) he has had abnormal tympanogram results (which measures the air volume in the ear canal) in one ear ever since that tube fell out. I am still figuring out what that means exactly. But she wanted to see if it was affecting his hearing - and to make a long story short, it is. In that ear he has a 20 db conductive hearing loss, which in his case is being caused by the ear drum not having normal mobility (I think).
She said that we could put another set of tubes in (the 4th ones) - which would equalize the air pressure and allow the ear drum to move properly again. But the only way to determine if that will be effective is to do it. In other words, we won't know for sure if it will even help until after it's done. yikes. And she agreed that she is reluctant to do surgery without knowing for sure that it is necessary.
So our plan for now is for him to come back in 8 wks and check his hearing again to see if it remains the same and then go from there.
A 20 db hearing loss is the very edge of mild hearing loss, and it is only in one ear (I think) - so it's not a major thing, I guess. Except that with all of his speech issues, we sure do want him hearing well so that he can learn to speak well. It's kind of important, don't you think? So I was quite disappointed to find out that he isn't hearing as well as he should.
Other than that, he and Elisabeth were positively monsters in the dr office - twice when I was talking to the receptionist (before and after our appt), I had to interrupt her to get Samuel to either A. stop screaming and pushing his sister, B. chase after them out the front door to get them to come back in because I wasn't ready to leave yet.
And then I made the BIG mistake of taking them to the store where I hoped to pick up just a couple things for Christmas and they ran around the aisles and climbed up shelves etc etc. And then after we got back home, they proceeded to continue getting into trouble ALL DAY LONG.
Tomorrow I am meeting with Isaac's school director to discuss test results relating to how they kicked him out of speech therapy last year.
And that's what I'm up to. There are also some other things stressing me out considerably right now that I can't talk about.
So, in a nutshell, I'm just a wee bit stressed out. Cheers . . .
4 comments:
step 1: breathe deep
step 2: breathe more
step 3: repeat
i'm sorry i can't be more helpful, but, it relates to that fb thread in which i commented about the juxtaposition of your kids and your particular personality, which i didn't really want to answer on facebook. basically, what i meant by that is that you stress out easily and really like order and control (not meaning that you want to BE IN control, but control as the opposite of chaos). you're a planner too (which relates to order and control). when there is no order or control you get even more stressed out. being stressed out contributes greatly to every other issue out there, pretty much. so, that sort of a temperament just doesn't mix very well with kids that are not docile or easy.
ugh. and again, i really don't know what else to say about the "other things". it's really unfortunate that the fall out is, well, falling on you. grrrr..
~m
Come to book club for fun and relaxation. See you later.
Um, what I meant to say was, next time simplify by leaving Elisabeth with me. Seriously. Doctor's visits are always stressful and you don't need a tagalong adding to the chaos. I'd love to have her come play while you're out taking care of business.
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