Gosh, I can't believe I didn't mention this earlier.
Mary went to the Audiologist on Friday, and guess what? Her eardrums are both ruptured! I felt like a grade A mother when the tester showed me the results. How could I not know? Don't you think that having an ear drum rupture would hurt something fierce? How could I have missed it? I've gotten over most of my Bad Mother Guilt, I'm mostly glad that we know now. It likely happened quite a while ago as she also has mild to moderate conductive hearing loss. From what I gather, that means that her ear nerves work well, the message just isn't getting to them due to the buggered ear drums. It is most likely the cause of her language problems too - she just doesn't hear us properly. So, we are now waiting to her from the Ear Nose Throat doctor so we can get started on fixing the problem. Tubes for the near constant ear infections that I had no idea about, skin grafts to fix the holes in the ear drums, who knows? Hopefully we will get a rush on the appointment with the ENT, there's only 3 in the city and they are all very busy, but the family doctor has asked that Mary be seen sooner rather than later because of her language issues. In the mean time we will continue going to the speech pathologist and working on her pronunciation that way, though I'm not sure how much it'll help. I mean, if she can't hear us properly we can repeat the proper way to say a word till we're blue in the face and she still won't get it, right?
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Various observations on life from inside the invisible jail of motherhood.
5 comments:
Wow Jenn,
I really feel for you. Especially the mother guilt. Now I'm all freaked out and looking in Sophie's ears for signs of infection! lol
See you when you get here. Let me know what's up with the Spa so I can go with you maybe for part of it. If you want some company that is.
Viv
well at least now you know. and you know it's not that she's got any kind of mental issues. it's her ears baby! that can be fixed.
I'm sorry that it'll be undoubtedly stressful, but at least now you know the deal and have a plan. :)
Mary
Hey Jenn
I can totally relate to your guilt. Justin was 18 months and had only one ear infection that we were aware of when our family doctor sent us to Dr Ogrady at which point he recommended that we have tubes placed in his ears. When he woke up from surgery it was the first time in his life he acually said I'm hungry! Hows that for guilt I had been starving my child and not even knowing it. He has had the tubes replaced once already and I wouldn;t hesitate to do it again if it was needed.
Take care and I'm trying to get out there to see you soon
Sandra
No, that's not in ANY way your fault (though I've got to wonder about the doctors looking her over for regular check-ups. How do they overlook that, particularly if it happened some time ago and you were already voicing concerns about Mary's speech?)
I've a nice big pair of knitting needles if you want to track down her old paediatrician in Endmonton and jam them into his/her ears.
I'm having some "bad friend" guilt here as I kept telling you it was probably nothing to worry about (except a couple ruptured eardrums!).
Lemme know if you want those knitting needles.
Wow!
Good to know, but I can understand the frustration of not knowing sooner! Luckily, you didn't wait until a Kindergarten teacher had to tell you to get her ears checked.. I've know parents who have been in such denial that anything was wrong, that they refused to even take their kid to see a doctor.
Best wishes on getting that ENT appointment, and whatever surgeries are required!
(BTW, I've seen ruptured ear-drum replacement surgery before. It's a very cool procedure!)
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