Andrew

We've always joked that Andrew's been our "high-maintenance" baby. He was early, he spent time in the NICU, there's his whole skull surgery deal, he was a late walker, and he's still not talking. That's what sent us to the doctor today. We had a hearing and speech evaluation done about three months ago, and the hearing evaluation showed some hearing lost in both ears. His pediatrician recommended we go to an ENT to see what was going on, so I made an appointment with a pediatric ENT. His name is Dr. Todd, and he was wonderful today. He looked into Andrew's ears, and even though Andrew's only been diagnosed with one ear infection, the doctor thinks that he's had mild ones on and off for a while. I guess there was some scarring on his ear drum. We also did another hearing evaluation. This time, his hearing tested in the normal range, but the tympanogram they did showed a negative pressure in his inner ear. The way the doctor explained it to me, negative pressure means that there's isn't enough air entering the inner ear through the Eustachian Tube. He said that most children outgrow this problem, and it is common for children who had oddly shaped heads to have this problem. It's also hereditary, but that not the case here. He told me that what's happening is every time Andrew swallows the pressure in his ear changes, so his hearing goes in and out. He said that makes it more difficult for language development that an across the board hearing loss, because the sounds are always going in and out. To solve this problem, Andrew will get tubes put in fairly soon. They'll stay in for about 8 months and probably fall out on their own. I would assume that we'll see if his speech improves before making any determinations about speech therapy. (The doctor did tell me that most speech evaluations, especially in young children like Andrew, are not very accurate since it's more subjective than anything else.)

I'll post when we get a date for surgery. It's outpatient surgery that will be done at Children's Healthcare at Egleston near Emory. I know it won't be the weeks of August 3rd or August 10th since that's pre-planning and the first week of school for me. I would also like it to be on a Friday since I'm pretty sure that it will take a day or two for Andrew to get back to himself. Hopefully, this surgery will get him hearing and talking soon!

By the way, the picture had absolutely nothing to do with the post, but I thought it was so cute, I had to put it up! I took this on the 4th of July.