“Fluid Wouldn’t Cause this Kind of Loss.”

On this very rainy afternoon, I swooped into the school’s office to find my sweet boy waiting patiently with his backpack amongst the other children being picked up for various doctor appointments or raging fevers. He giggled when he saw me and off we went to the ENT, along with a snoring two year old strapped into his car seat. After hearing some mixed messages these past weeks about my son’s hearing, I was anxious to find another opinion and to get to the bottom of it all.

The ENT’s office was efficient and, within minutes of arriving, paying our co-pay and submitting our paperwork, I was sitting across from the ENT herself. She was smart (I could just tell she was), she had a dry sense of humor and a kind, approachable personality. While clearly not one to be condescending to her young patients, she was also not one to shy from the facts with the parents either. We took the time to go through his history in detail. And then with a half smile and a calming approach, she examined my son’s ears.

“Well. Fluid wouldn’t cause this kind of loss, I’m afraid.” Yes, she did see some fluid but not enough to warrant the sort of loss he is experiencing. She went on to explain the test results to me. There are two sorts of reasons for  hearing loss. In layman terms (because I really don’t know any other sort of terms yet), loss can be a result of either something external which affects the conduction of sound (fluid in ear, wax, ear drum issues) or the loss is a result of the nerve not transmitting the sounds accurately. The audiologist had tested for both sorts of loss in his left ear. To test the nerve itself, she had measured his hearing through the bone. And since both tests in the left ear showed the same results, it is likely his loss is a neural issue. To that end, some inner ear fluid would not affect the neural test either.

So what does that mean? This sort of loss is permanent. And yes, there is a chance it could get worse.

The good news? His other ear is a rock star. She said that because we (parents and teachers)  have not noticed any loss before this, his right ear is probably doing an amazing job compensating for the left ear’s loss. Usually parents see behavior changes, confusion, less participation in school, lower grades, etc. with hearing loss. And while he isn’t the chattiest kid around (yes, he IS related to me, I promise), he has been doing fantastic at school and has never given any of us any obvious signs he can’t hear well enough.

Will he need a hearing aid? He might. We’ll see. She thinks that since he is coping just fine as is, an expensive hearing aid might just get lost and not worn anyway. She doesn’t think its worth it. Yet. She did mention that she wants to retest his ears in two months and maybe do a CT scan of his inner ear structure. We’ll reconsider the hearing aid possibility then.

So how do I feel about all this? I’m disappointed. I wanted his hearing issues to miraculously clear up with a little Claritan. (What parent wouldn’t?) But I am also not surprised. It just didn’t seem to make sense that fluid would explain months of failed hearing tests. I knew it was too good to be true.

I am also not disheartened. His right ear is getting it done. As I have mentioned before, he seems no worse for wear. He has been coping well with this loss all along and he is doing great at school. Shoot, without those audiologist results, we never would have even known he had a loss in the first place. Besides, so many readers, friends and family have pointed out that a mild or moderate hearing loss is kind of no big deal. Really. He’s good. Especially if his loss does not change.

But that’s the key. That he stays as is. That his hearing loss does not get worse.

While I am writing this, my five year old is watching Pinky Dinky Doo. (Nothing like a little after-school downtime with Noggin.) And do you know what he just did? He turned the volume up, slightly. And the other day I noticed that while he as speaking to his beloved uncle, he had the phone on his left ear and almost immediately put the speaker phone on.

Huh.

Oh. Right. I get it now. Or at least, I am trying really reeeeally hard to get it. Maybe I am only now noticing his hearing behavior when I never did before. But this is a learning process. That’s what parenting is after all. We try to learn to be better parents everyday. I am simply just adding one more thing I need to get better at to the list.