E is for Ears

Today we had an appointment with the audiology department of CNMC. I wasn't quite sure what to expect; the website briefly outlines the process for a baseline hearing test, and mentions that for severely uncooperative children, sedation is an option. I was pretty confidant going into this that Bally was going to have to be sedated.

We didn't have to wait long (which means we were all still in good moods) and were quickly ushered into a tiny little box of a room with heavy sound insulation, little light, and a giant mirrored window on one wall. This prompted dancing. /dancebreak.

Okay, now that we got that out of our system, we continue. After a few questions, the first test began. We were to sit in a chair facing the big "mirror", and the audiologist went into the room behind the mirror and began the test. It took about 5 minutes and consisted of speakers on opposite sides of the room flaring up at different volumes. Then a general rinse-and-repeat that involved headphones. Bally passed this test with flying colors (and flailing limbs).

We were then moved into the second room and this is where Bally started to decide that he wasn't appreciating this much at all. A little earbud was placed inside each ear to take a picture of his ear drum. Well, Bally doesn't like people being in his ears. They're HIS ears. Get your own. Anyway, we passed this one too. No blockages, no infection.

The third and final test... well, it really just didn't happen. In a perfect world, the well-behaved, fully-cooperative child sits silently with an earbud first in one ear, then in the other, and the earbud makes a faint noise to gauge the movement of the tiny hairs on the inner ear canal. Lol what? Sit silently? With something in "MA EARR, MA EARRRRR"? Yea, pretty much. We tried blowing bubbles, we tried playing his favorite music video, a book, a teddy bear, sheer force with his legs squished between my knees and his arms crossed and strapped to his chest-- nothing worked.
"HELP! HEEEELP!!"
"WHHYYYYYYYYYY????"
"I can't DOOO ITTTTT!!"
"WHY WHY WHYYYYYYYYY?????"
"WHERE. IS. GRANDPAAAAA."
.....

So after about 20 minutes of this, the audiologist managed to get a slight healthy reading from his left ear, and absolutely nothing from his right ear. But at this point she probably had bruises covering at least 40% of her right thigh, and Bally may or may not have damaged the wiring to the earbud-- he got smart and started winding the wire around his shoe by rotating his ankle, and then giving a sharp kick to pull the bud from his ear. So bad. After all this, she said that she's confidant saying that his speech and language delays are NOT because of a hearing problem, but that she will not claim that his hearing is 100% because he is unable to be tested right now. We're to return for retesting after he's been in school or therapy with Child Find for 3 months; she seems to think he'll be more cooperative then. Ha! He'll just be that much bigger and stronger. >:]

I don't have any especially interesting photos this week, but that's okay, because I'll be overloading on them next week. We're off to the beach for 8 days! I've been putting off scheduling any new appointments, or any thinking about doctors and schooling in general.. which means that once I get back home, we're going to be pretty flooded with things to get done before school starts in the fall.

But that's okay! Because we're going on vacation! Bally respectfully requests that you all STAY IN LINE until his return! He'll be performing a thorough exam, so don't dare get sloppy.