Part 3 and 4, Pediatrician and ENT

This morning was really full! We left the house shortly before 8 for an appointment with Lottie's new doctor, the Pediatrician. She was very kind, but younger than I expected! She came up with the same issues that Dr Felkley and the audiologist did- Lottie has fluid in her ears.

She was very pleased to know that Lottie has learned a lot of sign language. She currently knows about 20-25 words in sign language where verbal kids her age typically know around 10 words. So she is definitely communicating well.

This doctor related Lottie's hearing issues to putting your head underwater and trying to hear. You can hear voices, but they are all muffled and more just general tones rather than words. Lottie has been trying to learn to talk through that! No wonder she hasn't learned anything!

We went to the ENT next. She was VERY good at the ENT and let them look in her ears. He told me at first that Lottie wouldn't like what he was going to do but he wasn't going to hurt her. Then he proceeded to paw through a bunch of sharp tools. I seriously though he was going to go poking around in her ears. But no, all he did was put a huge light into her ear and look through a microscope thingy. And Lottie did stay very, very still for that.

With just barely looking in her ears he declared there was enough fluid that he is going to have tubes put in her ears immediately. He said 'as soon as possible'. So we headed out to the front desk to schedule surgery. We have a pre-op appointment scheduled for Jan 3 and then the surgery will happen on Jan 9, first thing in the morning.

After the surgery she will have a follow up with ENT and Audiology at about 4-6 weeks and then a follow up with the pediatrician at about 8 weeks, to make sure she is learning to talk well. I'm pretty sure that EDIS will work with her, at least for a little while, as soon as the tubes are put in.

It was weird to me, on the way home from the doctor, to think that Lottie can't actually hear me. It completely changed how I though about the things I was saying to her. I was told by audiology that she couldn't hear me, but I guess I more pictured that I was just too quiet or something. But the analogy to being under water makes a lot more sense. Talking louder isn't going to get her to hear my any more. And giving her commands while she isn't even facing me, I realized thats pretty dumb. If she can't understand what I'm saying, of course she isn't going to listen.

I'm glad that we are pursuing this and getting things cleared up. Hopefully this is the end of it and none of the hearing loss is permanent. But I guess we'd just deal with it if it were...