ENT Appointment – Tubes Coming Soon

 

Rowan had yet another audiologist appointment yesterday, followed by an appointment with the ENT. It turned out the audiologist appointment was very brief; she did the test to check eardrum flexibility and it was still showing that his eardrums were not moving nearly as much as they should be. She decided not to make him sit through another hearing test.

Next came the appointment with the ENT. Rowan hates having people look in his ears, so this was just tons of fun. There is still a lot of fluid behind his eardrums.

Long story short, he will be getting tubes on December 19th.

Long story long, even though he does not have a recent history of recurrent ear infections, he still meets the criteria of someone who will likely benefit from tubes. He has chronic fluid build-up, has failed one tone on his hearing tests three months apart, has lacked eardrum movement over the course of three appointments (July, October, December), is borderline on speech development, and is at risk for developmental delays due to prematurity.

The doctor left it up to me, which is something I normally appreciate, but in situations like this, I’m like, dude, you have the degree, just tell me what to do.

Obviously, this is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I’d say at least 25% of the people I’ve mentioned it to have said their kid has had tubes, or in some cases, multiple sets of tubes. The procedure is done at the outpatient center and only takes around 15 minutes. It does involve anesthesia, though.

Is it related to prematurity? That’s the rhetorical $10,000 question. It really doesn’t make a difference, and like with his reactive airway disease, there is no way to know. Prematurity is a factor in the decision to do the tubes since he is already at higher risk for developmental delays.

Preefuckingclampsia, the gift that never stops giving.

We will have a pre-op appointment sometime next week, though the nurse did not call me back on Friday with more information.

In my fantasies, he gets the tubes and suddenly starts talking. And sleeping through the night. And eating vegetables. And Lorelei starts eating vegetables and cleaning her room. Nobody whines about things. They put themselves to bed. My missing computer mouse turns up. Clinton is president. I get a free trip to Bora Bora. You know, totally reasonable expectations for two tubes the size of a grain of rice.

I’ll leave you with this video of Rowan playing Zach’s mini cajon drum. He climbed up on the couch, pulled it off the table, and took it to the middle of the room to play it just like his daddy plays the big one.