My daughter is incredible. I know, I know- almost every mother out there has that opinion. But, really. She’s amazing. She’s almost always happy (unless she’s not getting her way of course), she’s always friendly, she flirts with everyone, eats everything, is kind, gentle, and compassionate. At just shy of 18 months, I think she’s doing pretty well. Her beautiful disposition is why it’s obvious when something is wrong. Usually, it starts with sleep interruption, fighting naps, crankiness between fits of laughter and giggling, and then becomes clinginess and tugging on ears.
I see the pattern because it has now repeated itself a full five times in the last eight months. Ear infection after ear infection. The latest being just three weeks ago when I was at the ENT for me and my fabulous doctor noticed that Sara didn’t seem as happy and flirtatious as usual (imagine how much fun I’m going to have when she’s 15!)- a little girl she’d only met once before but remembered her so vividly even she could tell something was off. She took time after my appointment to stay with us a little longer and check her out.
Not shockingly, she found a raging infection in her right ear- another round of antibiotics. Which, admittedly, she always responds well to. The doctor threw in that when she comes for her follow up she might want to discuss tubes, and of course my BP started climbing. I did what I do best when faced with a stressful situation: research. I took to talking to friends, reading studies, finding other parents advice and experience and the more I read the more I realized that she probably had other issues stemming from the plague of ear infections. As I mentioned, my daughter is amazing. Truly. She’s incredibly smart. And because I see how well she works through problems, plays with her puzzles, makes her art, finds things even I couldn’t I missed that her speech was slowly falling behind. She ‘talks’, but in her own language, a mix of jibber jabbering I am convinced is brilliant if only I could understand it.
As I read about the reasons that tubes can be recommended the speech delay issue kept reappearing and I looked up what was appropriate for age and found that she’s a little behind. In all other developmental milestones she’s functioning at the level of a 2 year old, but in speech she’s barely making the 12- month expectations. My heart sank that my beautiful little girl was having such problems communicating. My eyes were instantly open to the frustration she exhibits at looking at me intently, saying something intensely, and my inability to understand her request. Far beyond just being denied what she wants, she isn’t able to be understood. The whining, crankiness, it all centers around her frustration at expression. I armed myself with the information I needed, and at her follow up last week the doctor looked in her ears again (something she just LOVES (sarcasm intended)) and noted the persistent fluid that plagues her middle ear along with a scab and crust resulting from a past attempt to clean out some of the gunk that accumulated in her right ear. She was pretty sure she was going to place tubes but at a minimum she wanted to correctly clean out the ear from the scab, etc. “Can you just stay a little longer?” she asked, “I think we should do a hearing test before we schedule the procedure”.
We stayed and did the hearing test and as my baby sat on my lap and faced the wall with speakers in either corner a mere 2 feet away I knew without the doctor telling me that she wasn’t hearing everything. Mild hearing loss, she said. There are sounds, words, that she simply cannot hear. My heart sank, my baby girl has been living in a quieter world than I realized, not able to hear my voice when she needs it, not able to learn the words that will help her express herself. I’ve barely even allowed myself to think about what words she can and cannot hear. Does she hear me the thousand times a day I tell her I love her? It’s okay, they tell me, my reaction and heartbreak obvious I’m sure. The tubes will help, it’s like she’s diving underwater and you’re on the surface, she can hear some things, and she knows you’re talking to her, but once we get the fluid drained, she’ll be able to hear it all. She’ll start talking more, she’ll get there.
And so, tomorrow we will wake her up at 5:30 am and trek to the surgery center where we will hold her and snuggle her while they put a mask on with anesthesia and watch her fall to sleep, only to have to walk out of the room while the procedure is done. I’m assured it’ll only be a little while, that we’ll be back in the room before she wakes up, that she’ll never know we left. I’ve had surgery, much more complicated than this, I know what I remember. I remember being scared, in a new place, with unknown things, unknown people who look funny in weird clothes. “It’ll traumatize you much more than it will her” they tell me. I hope so. I know without any doubt that this is the right thing to do, that this will help her, that she needs this. I know that we’ll all get through this and it’s the start of a new chapter, but the thought of watching her fall asleep with a mask on her face and not knowing if she’s ever actually heard me when I tell her I love her scares me to death. It’s low risk, it’s a ‘normal/everyday procedure’, millions of kids have this done.
I know.
But this is my baby.
Mommy Pumpadour 