Crazy Times at the ENT

Before we left the hospital, they told us Callum had failed the hearing test on the right side.  This definitely worried us, but we prayed about it and we knew there was a pretty good chance that after being retested, he would measure normal.  They told us sometimes the baby's ear is blocked with vernix after being born and that is why the hearing test is failed when it's first given. 

So, we scheduled a visit with the ENT for a week after Callum was born.  Let me just say, you should get a medal for just making it to the doctor with a newborn.  I tried hard to time my arrival at the doctor's office with the time of the appointment, but with juggling the stroller, car seat, feeding Callum so he wouldn't be fussy, parking, and actually getting into the building, I ended up being about 15 minutes late for the appointment.  Imagine my disappointment when I tried to check in and they told me I was too late and I'd have to reschedule the appointment.  I seriously almost started crying in the middle of the doctor's office.  (Ok, I might have actually cried some.)  I was so upset.  I'm sure some of it was due to lack of sleep and hormones, but some of it was just that I couldn't believe they would make me reschedule given the circumstances.  

I left the office and called to reschedule.  They were able to reschedule me for later on that day.  You better  believe I was on time for that appointment!  So, finally at the appointment, the doctor examined Cal's ears and said his right ear (the one he failed the hearing test in) had an extremely narrow ear canal and it was crammed with all kinds of stuff (my summary because I don't know all the medical terms).  He said this is probably why Cal failed the hearing test, but that they'd have to wait 3 weeks to retest and confirm this, because Cal's ear still needed to grow some.  So, he cleaned a bunch of stuff out of Cal's ear, and we proceeded out of the office.

The drama continued.  I got to my car and I could not for the life of me figure out how to collapse the stroller to put it away in the car.  I'm sure some of it was stress, some exhaustion, and some just not being able to keep up with everything new going on, but it was extra crazy because there was some determined man sitting in his car waiting for my parking spot, and he had a line of about 10 cars behind him.  It probably took me 5 minutes to figure it out and get Cal loaded up.  I had a bit of a wardrobe malfunction in the midst of all of this, and at that point, I just had to laugh.  Cal and I finally made it out of there, and I was relieved, to say the least.

So, three weeks later, we go back to the ENT for the follow up visit and retest.  The visit with the doctor is relatively uneventful, but the hearing test, lets just say it was an ordeal.  When they test a baby's hearing, the baby needs to be quiet and just about asleep.  Tell that to a one month old who's hungry and has a dirty diaper.  The nurse was able to test the left ear with no problem.  Then she moved on to the right ear, which was the ear that had previously failed the hearing test.  Then the craziness began.  Either Cal would start crying or knock the sensor out of his ear every time the test got going.  Then we had to start over again.  This repeated itself probably 20 times.  At one point, he was sitting in my lap, and I felt a warm sensation on my shirt and jeans.  I didn't dare move because I was hoping this test would take.  It didn't, he cried and we had to start over.  When I lifted him up, sure enough, he'd peed through his diaper on to me.  Extra fun when I was going to have to walk through the office building with a huge wet spot on me.

So, we decided to take a break and I'd go change Cal and then we'd try again.  I successfully changed Cal, but in the process, got peed on again.  We went back into the office and tried the test a few more times, and eventually, the test took, and he passed in both ears!  You can't imagine how relieved I was to be done with that.  We were probably in there trying to get the test finished for at least an hour. 

But, the important thing is that Cal's hearing is normal, and hopefully, we won't have to endure any more hearing tests in the future.  Whew!