Ear update

We had Luke's first appointment with the ENT specialist yesterday. I was glad to finally get him in and have someone look more carefully at his ears and his hearing.

The hearing test was probably the most important part of the appointment. They did two different testing procedure on Luke. The first was to put him in a soundproof booth. The audiologist had speakers on either side of the room as well as little lights and characters for Luke to look at. He responded pretty well to her speaking to him through a microphone, but there was an obvious favoring of his left ear (not a big surprise since his pediatrician had noted more fluid in the right ear). When tones were played, however, Luke did not appear to notice them until she made them quite a lot louder. Overall, he scored just below average.

The second test was one where the vibrations of his ear drums were measured. When the sound waves were sent into his ear, neither ear drum vibrated AT ALL. This means that there is so much fluid behind those ear drums that they are not able to correctly respond to sounds. Luke's hearing is impacted by the fluid, and most of what he hears must sound muffled.

With this information, the ENT quickly suggested that Luke have tubes put in to drain that fluid from his ears and to, hopefully, help prevent future infections. During this time, when his hearing so drastically impacts his language development, this is really the only option.

The good news is that it is a relatively simple procedure, which takes only about 20 minutes total (unfortunately, he does have to go under general anesthesia) ... and we were able to take a spot in the schedule that was open due to a cancellation for tomorrow morning. So, Luke is having his ear tubes put in tomorrow morning. I'll post an update once he is home and recovering.