Under the knife

After waiting for several months for the thick goo in my son's inner ear to magically disappear, he has failed another audiology test at school. What they consider to be normal hearing range for optimum learning in the classroom, he cannot hear. There is a 25 to 30 decibel hearing loss.

Funny, though, that his teacher doesn't notice anything wrong. She says he doesn't seem to be impaired at all in the classroom, other than being distractable and being unable to stay on task at times. I'm guessing that could be due to things happening around him that are at tones that his ears are susceptible to hearing?

Anyway, via the internet I found a group of pediatric ENT specialists, and took him in for a second opinion. Remember the first MD that immediately wanted to remove tonsils and adenoids? I just couldn't make the decision to be that invasive. He was so quick to come to that conclusion, and it made me uncomfortable. "Well, as long as we are in there, we should just do it all. Why wait?"

Because it's my son, that's why.

Anyway, after an exam and yet another hearing test, new MD did say there is goo in there that needs to come out, that The Boy probably hasn't had normal hearing in quite some time, and he recommended putting tubes in his ears.

That is all.

Tubes.

I asked about the tonsils and adenoids. He said, " I can tell this child has not had a lot of problems with sore throats, so I see no reason to remove anything at this time. Yeah, they are large but not massive. I don't look at them and think OH MY GOD THEY ARE HUGE!"

I love him.

And, rather than pressuring us into making a snap decision like the other MD, he asked if we needed to go home and think it over.

No need. Our minds were already made up. We scheduled the surgery for May 29.

I feel so badly for The Boy. I can't even imagine what he has missed. Nothing screams Mother of The Year like letting your child suffer with hearing loss during his first year of school.