Not impressed

It is not that hard of a question. Does she have a hearing problem or not? Yes, or no? Is she slow to speech because she just doesn't feel like talking yet, or can she not hear very well? I am not impressed.

June 24 - a day looked to with much anticipation. We hoped for some answers as to whether or not Natalie had some hearing problems. We have been concerned for a while as Natalie has not developed her vocabulary as quickly as is to be expected and also responds sporadically to our speech. Sometimes she turns when we call her, but most times she does not. She often does not notice us in the room until we are in front of her or make a very loud noise. We just want to make sure that her learning is not being hindered. There is a very delicate window where speech is learned. She is currently in that window. If there is a hindrance to that learning, she can be severely impacted for the rest of her life.

So, we want answers. If she simply is taking her time to talk, that is completely fine with me. She can take all the time she needs. But, if she is struggling because she can't hear properly, it is my responsibility to make sure that is resolved so she can progress and move forward. Right about now, I feel helpless.

We took her in for her hearing test with high hopes. I talked to the doctor for a while and expressed my concerns. She explained to me what we would be doing and what we are looking for. Then, we went into the sound booth. Natalie was not exactly cooperating. She was tired and didn't want to be sitting still. The only thing I could do to keep her still was let her sit in my lap and eat her snack. Not the most optimal thing to be doing during a hearing test.

About a half hour later we are done. She talked over the results with me and told me that she does suspect a slight hearing loss based off of the results she could gather. But, of course, this isn't completely accurate. She told me that from what she could tell, she struggled in certain decibal ranges. She could hear decently at conversational levels and above, but struggled any lower.

She wanted to see Natalie back for another test that would see if her nerves in the cochlea were receiving any signal. We arranged to come back July 12. I left frustrated that we were not any closer to an answer.

July 12 is here. Again, we were hopeful for some answers. We started the day at the ear, nose, throat doctor for Natalie's three month follow up from tubes. As part of this follow up, they did their own hearing test. What a mess.

The mess started from my incessant need to be at doctor appointments early. I generally don't like being to things late, but I think this even goes a step further with the unrealistic expectation that if I am early, I may actually be seen right at my appointment time. Fat chance, I know. So, we arrive at 9:40am for a 10:00am appointment. Generally I am not this early but the office was a half hour away and I also wanted some extra time for getting to the suite which was three stories up in a medical offices plaza. The kids were in good spirits and played really well for the first half hour we were there. Yes, that's right. Half hour. Neither of them had naps the day before, so both were feeling pretty tired and crabby come 10:15. They were both itching to leave and Natalie tried booking it out the door several times.

Finally at 10:25 they took us back. Little did I know what this hearing test entailed or else I would not have brought little Weston along. When Weston is tired he tends to move that much faster in an attempt to not fall asleep. He was bouncing off the walls. The poor technician was trying to put some probes in her ears to test otoacoustic emissions - basically to see if her cochlea and hair cells were working- and all Natalie could do was whine, wiggle, and shake her head to knock the probes out. Weston was running around touching everything. After much stress, the technician said her right ear seemed to be okay from what she could tell (Natalie didn't keep it in very long) and her left ear had some blockage so she didn't get accurate results for that one.

Next, was the sound booth. You kidding me? Once again, Weston was running around touching everything and Natalie struggled to get out of my lap. Every time the technician would talk through the speakers, Weston responded and Natalie just sat there, very unamused. Good thing Weston can hear! Natalie struggled and wiggled throughout the whole thing, turning to look where the sound was coming from only periodically. What a mess. It was only about two minutes - but what a mess for two minutes. Afterwards, the technician tells me, "She did good." What?! You serious?! She did terrible. How could you even tell if she heard anything? She wasn't even paying attention. And, it was only two minutes. What can you test in that amount of time? Once again - very unimpressed.

Back to the waiting room for us. By now the kids have had it and are ready for bed. Luckily we got back to the doctor relatively fast. While we are waiting for him to come in, the kids find the chair fascinating and are climbing up it and sliding down like a playground slide. They are laughing, giggling, running around the chair, making quite the ruckus. The doctor comes in and looks in Natalie's ears while Weston is still squealing around us and turning the chair light on and off. How embarrassing. My kids are out of control.

He told me that Natale's left ear tube is blocked and that we will need to remove that. Before we can, she has to have drops put in her ears for ten days to soften it up. Of course we will be on vacation which now pushes it out to two more weeks before we can have this fixed. I told him about my concerns about her hearing and he told me from what he can see from what they did today, she looks to be fine. But, he also says that since she was not cooperative that there is no way to really tell. All of this is of course said over two squealing and out of control children that are now strapped down to the stroller. He says we will have to keep testing her until we can get some accurate results. He says sometimes it can take many many attempts. Easy for him to say. He doesn't have to travel half way across town for these tests, or try to keep a kid happy through these tests, or find somewhere for the older wild child to stay during these tests, or find some way to pay on a very strict and finite budget for these tests (considering insurance only pays for the first $1000 in testing per calendar year - I am sure we have already reached that). He goes on to say that at her age, many kids don't say much anyway so she is fine. Really? Not impressed.

I left the office frazzled, frustrated, and concerned. I was frazzled because the kids were so beyond tired it was ridiculous - and I knew that I needed to keep Natalie awake for at least the next two hours so she would sleep through her test at 2pm. I was frustrated because I lost all confidence in doctors. No one has any answers for me, everyone just gives these half=hazard guesses, no one seems to care, and everyone just keeps finding ways to make us keep coming back to just take more and more of our money. We have been trying to figure out how to help Natalie for eighteen months now. Eighteen months and no one can tell me why she always has a runny nose, no one can tell me why she is always sick, no one can tell me if she does in fact have a milk allergy or not (and no one seems to want to do a blood test on it - really? I think she can handle a few moments of discomfort to get rid of a lifetime of misery), and no one can tell me if she has a hearing problem. I am concerned because if this doesn't get corrected soon, this could permanently damage her ability to speak. Everything I have read says that there is a window between 18 months and two years where the majority of the learning for speech patterns is learned. If this window is missed, some things can never be learned (and if it can, it will still cause significant learning delays). This is just not fair to poor little Natalie. Like I said before, if she doesn't have a hearing problem - FANTASTIC! But if she does, we need it fixed - and now! No one else seems to feel the same way.

Not impressed.

After much deliberation, I decided to call the hearing clinic and cancel our appointment for this afternoon. There is no point in doing testing when she can't hear through the blockage anyway. I'm not going to shovel out more money for still no results. So, we are rescheduled for August 3. I am losing hope here. But, at least the kids are asleep!