Madeleine and the ENT

Madeleine saw the ENT specialist today, Dr. Nissen. He seemed nice. I thought that Holy Family would forward Maddie's medical records (or at least the relevant part) to him since they referred us. After all, it's the same physician network and they all ought to have fax machines and access to the postal service. All they sent was her name and birthdate. I was disappointed.

He began asking questions about how many ear infections she'd had and when and I was stuttering, trying to remember when her run started and when they'd come back and what the symptoms were. Now if I had one child, this would be fairly simple, but we visited the doctor's office quite a few times this winter with EVERY child, not just with Madeleine. Then in April, we had SIX doctor visits with an assortment of family members. So I'm thinking...hmmm...Maddie had this, but oh, wait, that was Noah...no, maybe Isaiah? Well, gee...maybe she had an ear infection once a month, doc? I was embarrassed when I couldn't come up with exact numbers and infinite details. Do you other moms keep records at home of which child had what, when, took what medication, what the symptoms were, and when they got better? Maybe that's something I ought to do? I could write a volume worthy of Encyclopedia Britannica!

So he looked in her ears and said she looks clear today. They tested her ear drums and found that she has a bit of fluid in there (our doctor also said this months ago) although there's no infection. An audiologist did a hearing test on her. It was a neat process; the lady set up a game with Madeleine ahead of time so that she knew when she heard a beep, she was to put a peg in the peg board. Then the audiologist, who was very good with her, put tube-phones in her ears and tested her hearing. I was with Madeleine in the sound-proof booth and the audiologist was on the other side, but we could see her through the window. Every so often, Maddie put a peg in the board. After that part of the test, the audiologist covered her mouth and asked Madeleine to repeat words. I couldn't hear anything, but it was funny to watch Madeleine repeat a word, giggle, and repeat another. The results showed that she has a very slight hearing loss on the low frequency end, which is within normal range and is common for a child with a little fluid in her ears. The ENT said that he would like to hold off on tubes at this time and wait to see if she gets another infection, which would indicate that it's something with Maddie as opposed to seasonal. This seemed like a good decision to me, so now we wait.