Part 2, Audiology

Lottie's audiology appointment was this morning. After rushing out the door and thinking I'd miss the appointment, I happened to make it on time, no thanks to Guam traffic!

The doctor led us into this soundless booth. It was weird and our voices sounded muffled and there was even a slight pressure on my ears. It wasn't really that comfortable at first. Lottie was a champ and allowed the doctor to look in her ears. He confirmed our family doctor's finding that there is indeed fluid one of Lottie's ears and it seemed red, indicating an infection.

He then put some ear buds in her ears and I *think* he was sending sound waves to measure her eardrum's responses. That resulted in him saying that there is quite a bit of fluid in both of her ears. He immediately said that he is going to refer us to the ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat doctor) who will more than likely put Lottie on a round of antibiotics. There is a possiblity that she would also get tubes, but that isn't at all sure yet because we need to actually talk to the ENT first.

The last test he did he went into a different room with a window to us. He put ear buds in Lottie's ears again. This time he sounded a tone in each ear and flashed a lighted toy at the same time. The toy was either to her left, her right or above her. He would sound the tone in her right, left or both ears as he lit the toy up. The point was to create a conditioned response where she would hear the tone and be rewarded for looking for the tone by seeing the lighted toy. Eventually he would sound the tone and then light up the toy rather than doing them together, and then eventually just sound the tone without lighting up the toy.

Anyway, Lottie didn't do so well on that test. She never got to the second step where he would light up the toy as a reward for looking toward the sound. She only sporactically turned toward the sound at all and sometimes she didn't even look at anything but instead started trying to get my attention.

The doctor assumed that she was distracted and thats why she wasn't looking, but I think it was the other way around. She started getting distracted because she wasn't hearing anything. He then reported that she has mild and moderate hearing loss in the high and low tones (I can't remember which tone was mild and which was moderate). He said this is very much a problem when it comes to speech and language development.

So. Bottom line is, she needs to see the ENT. Then we'll go back to get her hearing checked again. It can go either way- the hearing loss can be completely repaired by getting the fluid cleared out of her ears, or the hearing loss could be permanant. But they won't know until we get the fluid cleared up.

Off to the other doctor then! Maybe we'll get that appointment next week and get the antibiotics going before Christmas!