Today Nathan had an appointment with his ENT. This was a routine check on his ears as he had tubes put in back in 2006 and one of them caused a hole in his eardrum. We were told it was one of the risks of ear tubes but we decided it was worth the small risk considering we may be dealing with multiple ear infections and more antibiotics than anyone needs to be on in a lifetime! The hole has caused some hearing loss but mainly it's been a nuisance by needing to have earplugs everytime he goes near water. The earplugs are to prevent the water from draining into his ear, sitting there and then possibly becoming infected or causing more hearing loss. In the five or so years that he's had to wear earplugs he's been bothered by water in his ears maybe three times, and it's never been infected so we've been very fortunate with that. When the hole formed in Nathan's eardrum (he was 3 1/2) we were told that if it didn't heal on it's own by the time he was seven surgery would be required to fix it. In the last nine months we've been visiting the ENT regularly and Nathan's had several hearing tests to keep an eye on things. The last two hearing tests (last December and last April) have shown decreases in his hearing and the hole was still in his eardrum this past May when we had our last appointment. There was not a hearing test scheduled previous to this appointment so we didn't know where his hearing was at, no changes had been noticed at home (listening is a different story!!;D), so we were coming into this appointment unsure of the direction it might take. The ENT looked in Nathan's right ear (the one with the hole), then looked in his left ear and then back into the right one. He said he couldn't see a hole but he wanted to clean out the wax and use a different instrument just to be sure. He then proceeded to repeat the steps with the new instrument (right, left, then right again) and said the hole had completely disappeared! All he saw in both ears were two whole and healthy eardrums! We were all shocked! Nathan & I were also amazed and unsure of what to do. The ENT said there was no need for ear plugs for showers, baths, swimming, running through the sprinkler or any other water activity any more. We are going swimming tomorrow and Nathan is nervous about not using an ear plug. He may wear one just to feel a bit more at ease but also knows that if it falls out we don't need to search for it or panic that water may have gotten in his ear. We are praising God for his goodness and miraculous healing! I realize it's a small hole but it feels like a big deal in our family. I now need to schedule a hearing test for November and we will see the ENT again in December.
You may wonder about the "seeing and growing" part of the title of this post considering I've focused on the "hearing" portion so far. Nathan got to see a lot today in the ENT waiting room as he got frustrated while we waited an extra 40 minutes past our appointment time. There was a 3 year old boy who sounded like Donald Duck when he spoke. At first we thought he was an entertaining little boy until we saw he had two hearing aids and heard his mom talk to someone else in the waiting room about how his vocal chords weren't attached when he was born and how the doctor tried to attach them and would probably need to repeat the surgery. She was also talking about all of the speech therapy and physical therapy her son has to go through. We also saw another boy with autism who couldn't speak, didn't enjoy his hearing test, had two hearing aids and couldn't communicate exactly how he felt. Nathan later said to me, "Mom, I'm not really a big deal. It was okay that the doctor was late." Growing.
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