Ears Update

Yesterday, while Sarah was busy packing up for the trip to the Midwest, I took Nicholas for his post-op follow-up appointment with the ENT specialist for his ear tubes.  His ears look fine, which is great. Plus, the doctor let me look through the scope to see the tube—very cool.

For some reason that didn't make sense to me, Nicholas was much more apprehensive about this visit. He seemed normal heading in, chirping from the car seat that we were going to the "special doctor" even before we'd gotten past the traffic circle outside our complex. Then he talked about the doctor (by name!) in the exam room, like always.  But he tightened up when the doctor actually came in. He wouldn't sit in the exam chair like he normally did, so I had to sit with him (which is how I got the peek at his tubes). Very odd.

After the quick check-up, Nicholas had to go for a hearing test, standard after a tube insertion. Hilarity ensued. He immediately got shy when the audiologist started asking him questions (though she saw it for that). She tried to test his hearing with headphones, but he was so confused that he wouldn't respond to her requests. She tried using speakers attached to TV screens, on which she played cartoons, but he very quickly got bored.  Then she tried a game where Nicholas would hold a toy and then put it in a stack when he heard a "beep."  She carefully explained that he should wait for the "beep," and then demonstrated by making the sound herself.  Nicholas, ever the independent child, decided that she was taking too long, said, "beep beep!" and stacked the toy.

Oh well.

She apparently got far enough to know that he's hearing at pretty low decibel levels, and just on spec obviously there's nothing wrong with his hearing. So he's fine.  But it was kind of a hilarious ten-minute expedition.

So now we're set on the ears, for a while anyway. We'll need to look someone up when we get to Boston to check up on them in the fall, but other than that, we just need to keep water out of his ears.