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We've just now come to understand that for at least the past year...
we've been living with a hearing-impaired child.
The tubes surgery that was done Wednesday opened our eyes to how much Hayden wasn't hearing.
Each day (and it's only been 4 days) we see more and more improvements and changes in Hayden.
1. He started using consonants he'd never used before.
2. He's starting to mimic things that he hears.
3. He's beginning to use more words
4. He's starting to use speech to express his desires, not gestures.
5. He has become extremely sensitive to our reprimands.
#5 Really hit home to us. Whenever we corrected him by saying "No Hayden", we'd always used a loud tone of voice. I'd just assumed all this time he just didn't obey unless I yelled. But now, if we yell when we say no, he gets extremely upset. It's obvious that it sounds much louder to him now and he just wasn't hearing it as well before. Wow.
It was just hard to know. I mean I knew he could hear, he'd passed the simple hearing test. But we just didn't know how well he was hearing. The fluid in his ear was apparently cause quite a bit of hearing loss. Poor baby.
I'm happy that we did the surgery. I was very apprehensive at first since I wasn't sure if the fluid was really affecting his hearing, but I'm so glad we did it.
5 comments:
He's such a sweet baby. I'm so glad y'all figured this out for him. I know it's been hard and frustrating. Love y'all!
Aw, yay Hayden! I'm so glad y'all are seeing such an improvement, and for such a quick procedure. Looking forward to seeing y'all tomorrow!
Wow! What peace you must feel now about the decision you made.
I didn't realize those hearing tests were so simple, but it is obvious now they are only to determine yes, the child can hear, or no the child can't, not colors/shades in between. I am glad Hayden can now hear much better. It is going to really help his speech blossom before our eyes.
Oh, goodness! So glad that it was worth it and you're seeing such quick results.
It's really hard for parents to know when to go for more vs. less medical intervention when we've learned so much about how the health care establishment seems to often err on the side of too much intervention, either as a legal CYA or to make patients/parents feel like they're *doing* something (whether it is proven to work or not). I felt so bad after letting Samson (& us) suffer through a month of sinus+ear infection, when we finally got antibiotics and it cleared up like magic within 36 hours. I was thinking, "Gosh, maybe I should stop worrying about over use of antibiotics & start demanding them every time we have a stuffy nose that lasts more than a week...."
So sorry I missed your birthday! Now I have two gifts to share upon our next visit - yours & Hayden's. Wanna meet for lunch this week?
Thank goodness this problem was able to be solved. YEAH!!
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