Tubes

It has been a while since I have posted, but we have been SUPER busy with school and such. I'll try to recap the summer later, but for now I am going to focus on the present.

We took Emma to an audiologist today to have her hearing checked and to get a second opinion. At the beginning of August I took Emma to see Dr. Barton about why she wasn't speaking. Really at 14 months she should have words for things and she didn't. He checked her ears out and said they looked a little inflamed so we would treat them for an ear infection. He also look in at her eardrum and saw that when air was puffed in the eardrum was only vibrating at about 50 percent.

I cried! And I cried! And I cried!

I didn't exactly understand what it all meant, but I did understand it meant that the reason Emma wasn't talking was because she wasn't hearing 100%. As time passed I've been feeling a little better about it, but I was anxious to go to the follow-up appointment.

Today at the audiologist they did a few tests to check Emma's hearing. Of course she cried most of the time because they were messing with her ears, but the bottom line the doctor was able to figure out she has a lower frequency hearing loss. They aren't sure right now if it is because of the build up in her ears due to ear infections or if she has a permanant lower frequency hearing loss.

The solution we have decided for now is to put tubes in her ears. We have a consultation appointment with Dr. Barton (who will do the tubes) on Friday. Once the tubes are in about two weeks later Emma with go back to the audiologist and they will check her hearing again to see if it is any better with the tubes in.

So that is our story with Emma's ears for now. I will try to keep this posted. For now, I have a video link you can go check out to see what the process of putting the tubes in her ears is like:
http://video.about.com/pediatrics/Ear-Tubes.htm