TONGUE IN CHEEK MOVES

Earlier this year Isaiah had a speech screening at his school. They were debating on whether to offer speech therapy at his preschool. The worker decided Isaiah needed to be further evaluated. I took him in for this evaluation about three weeks ago. She said although he had few errors and had passed the evaluation which is lenient at his age, the errors he had were errors normally self corrected through development by now and he would require speech therapy. This was basically a given with his hearing and speech history. My goal was to try to get as many of the speech impediments corrected as possible before he starts kindergarten. He is starting to realize he says things wrong and often won't repeat things saying, "Mommy, I tan't say it right!" This just makes me sad and I will help him anyway that I can!

This past week we went for his first therapy session and to go over the final evaluation report.

His therapist is amazing and we both just love her. She said just after his progress in the first session that she thinks he will do really well and it probably won't take as long as noted. I found the session intriguing. I was so amazed at what she was doing and it was immediately working. Sure he will have to work with us and it will take time but it was just amazing. I've always known hearing affects speech and that speech involves proper tongue and mouth movements BUT this was too cool. For instance to say a K word or just the "ka" sound the front of the tongue goes down and behind the bottom front teeth while the back part goes up. She informed me that many children with his same prior medical issues will have the same speech impediments because they lack muscle control towards the back of the mouth. Interesting, huh!?!?

Well she was TRYING to teach him some tongue exercises to strengthen his back tongue muscles. One such exercise was closing his mouth then using his tongue to push against the inside of his cheek therefore forming a ball look on the outside of the cheek. Are you trying it? Not hard just the tongue in cheek move! She would then push on the ball on the outside and tell him not to let her push it in. Isaiah could not do it. To teach him, she decided to show him and let him "push" on her cheek.

Are you ready?

Here it goes:

Poor, innocent, sweet, cheerful and funny speech therapist makes the "ball" and tells Isaiah to PUSH the ball back into her mouth so it will go to the other side.

Ornery, concerned, sweet, handful yet still learning Isaiah punches the ball which is her tongue in cheek and we both had to laugh because it was so unexpected.

Then poor, innocent, sweet, cheerful and funny speech therapist says, "Ok lets do the other side but this time not so hard!"

What speech therapist should have said was "Do NOT punch just push with one finger!"? Mistake noted by MOI!

She puts tongue in cheek then tells him to push. He lifts his hand, makes a fist and draws it back to hit his new fun punching back when I swear within a split second her eyes were the size of quarters, she ducked and her chair flew back!

Embarrassing?

Yes!

Funny?

NO HI-LAR-I-OUS!
I wish you could have seen the expression on her face!

PRICELESS!

Instead of trying it again, she showed him with MOMMY pushing!

Pushing/punching?

They sound alike to me!

He went home with "homework" which totally excited him since he gets jealous that he doesn't have any homework. He is doing well and we will return for more therapy next Tuesday. Can't wait to see what he learns next time. Kid you not I was amazed just watching. THEN in the drive home I was saying different words and paying complete attention to my tongue placement.

Try it with me!

You know you want to!

Say the word "THINK" outloud making note of your tongue placement.

for the "th" sound the tip of you tongue rubs against the bottom of your top front teeth

for the "i" sound your tongue goes back and stays mainly in the middle

for the "k" sound the tip of your tongue goes down against the back of your bottom front teeth with a click coming from the back

Amazing I know!

I spend the good part of an hour saying random words over and over while driving or talking on the phone and paying very close attention to tongue placement. Wow! Then I got rather freaked out that our brains know where the tongue should go as long as we have the muscle control! Freaky, huh!

I HEART FACES! ~ WONDER

Week 6

Yes I know I have posted this pic (in color) and this same exact story before for a Wordful Wednesday post but I couldn't pass up the chance to use it for the I heart faces kids contest when I saw the theme was wonder! I edited the pic a bit but here is the underlying story of why I love this picture!

To most this is yet another picture of a beautiful little boy staring off into the world but to me it means SO much more. For the initial version of my son's hearing difficulties go here and I will try to keep this short and to the point. I had told everyone for a long time I didn't think Isaiah could hear me. I knew he wasn't completely deaf but I had to clap my hands of yell to get his attention far too often if he wasn't looking at me. Everyone had an excuse like he is stubborn (yep!), he is the second child and they don't talk as early (true!) or he is a master of selective listening (he's a pro now!). Like every Mother who doesn't want anything to be wrong with her baby, I chose to accept these excuses but my intuition told me otherwise. After a long struggle, I got him into an ENT who confirmed my fears. Isaiah had a BUNCH of fluid on his ears, needed tubes and he could not hear. They feared he would have permanent hearing loss because of the extent of his damage. The surgery went off without a hitch and I cried the first time I saw him wandering around the house trying to figure out each and every tiny noise he heard. You don't realize all the things you "hear" and block out until your baby boy is perched with his ear against the running dishwasher wondering what in the world is going on in there and you never even "heard" it running. Everything was new to him. Isaiah's personality and hearing was night and day just days after surgery. Six months post-op, many visits, two failed hearing tests later, he FINALLY passed his first hearing test and tears just rolled down my cheeks as he turned for every sound.

Isaiah always loved parades and was never scared of the loud noises but that was because everything was muffled in his world. The photo above is of him watching a parade just two weeks after surgery. He was in awe as if he had never seen a parade but it was because he had never truly heard a parade until this photo was taken. Every time I see this picture I think of all my little boy went through and how thankful I am that he can hear everything unless he is using his newly acquired selective listening skills, of course! At the time I was taking the picture, I was wondering if he could hear and my heart skipped a beat when the firetrucks came and I took another photo with him laying back with his hands over his ears ~ he can hear!

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DO YOU EVER HEAR MUSIC?

Music to my ears....hmmm....not so much. Some people hear voices but I keep hearing music. Don't know why or from where but I keep hearing music.

I thought maybe a TV was left on....NO.

I thought maybe a radio was on.....NO.

I thought maybe the volume on the computer speakers was on low and I was hearing music from someone's blog I had minimized.....NO.

Definitely not the Hubs because his snoring is definitely NOT music to my ears. I thought maybe I was hearing the dryer's loud annoying beep for me to empty it.....NO.

Maybe Elijah is just talking in his sleep.....NO.....probably later though.

I thought maybe the neighbors were having a siesta then realized I probably meant fiesta but was still unsure so I went outside to check.....NO.

HEY I took French, remember...I don't know Spanish....only words closely related to French, counting to 10 or words otherwise learned from Dora the Explorer! Highly educational!! But why is the little girl wandering around town alone getting lost anyway and why in the world does she have a pet monkey. One of those "things that make you hmm..." ...are you humming or singing!

I don't know WHERE in the world I am hearing it from but I keep just randomly hearing music.

Faint music.

It is taunting me and I can't sleep!

WORDFUL WEDNESDAY

Many people do Wordless Wednesday and just post a photo. Yes I believe that some pictures speak for themselves; however, you don't know the story behind some of them and what they truly mean to the photographer could be the complete opposite. For this very reason I am pleased to say I have found Wordful Wednesday and it is just my cup of tea. So here we go with my inaugural Wordful Wednesday post and we all know I have an earful!!

To most this is yet another picture of a beautiful little boy staring off into the world but to me it means SO much more. For the initial version of my son's hearing difficulties go here and I will try to keep this short and to the point. I had told everyone for a long time I didn't think Isaiah could hear me. I knew he wasn't completely deaf but I had to clap my hands of yell to get his attention far too often if he wasn't looking at me. Everyone had an excuse like he is stubborn (yep!), he is the second child and they don't talk as early (true!) or he is a master of selective listening (he's a pro now!). Like every Mother who doesn't want anything to be wrong with her baby, I chose to accept these excuses but my intuition told me otherwise. After a long struggle, I got him into an ENT who confirmed my fears. Isaiah needed tubes in his ears, he could not hear and they feared he would have permanent hearing loss because of the extent of his damage. The surgery went off without a hitch and I cried the first time I saw him wandering around the house trying to figure out each and every noise he heard. You don't realize all the things you "hear" and block out until your baby boy is perched with his ear against the running dishwasher wondering what in the world is going on in there and you never even "heard" it running. Everything was new to him. Isaiah's personality and hearing was night and day just days after surgery. Six months post-op, many visits, two failed hearing tests later, he FINALLY passed his first hearing test and tears just rolled down my cheeks as he turned for every sound.

Isaiah always loved parades and was never scared of the loud noises but that was because everything was muffled in his world. The photo above is of him watching a parade just two weeks after surgery. He was in awe as if he had never seen a parade but it was because he had never truly heard a parade until this photo was taken. Every time I see this picture I think of all my little boy went through and how thankful I am that he can hear everything unless he is using his professional selective listening skills, of course! At the time I was taking the picture, I was wondering if he could hear and my heart skipped a beat when the firetrucks came and I saw this:

This photo is music to Mommy's ears!

Now do you see what I mean? If you didn't hear the story, these pictures are just cute but now you know why they are so meaningful ~ at least to me!

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UNBELIEVABLE RECOVERY

After hearing MANY horror stories along with very firm instructions and warning signs from the doctors and nurses, I totally expected a week of agony for Isaiah and prayed so hard that he would drink enough to stay hydrated. Answer to prayers, soldier boy or freak of nature are just some of the many thoughts I have had since Zaya's surgery!! The kid came home and although I thought he would be sleeping off anesthesia for hours, he had different plans. The boy ate applesauce, 2 popsicles and drank 2 sippy cups of white grape juice WHILE playing with cars, chatting on the phone and flipping out because I wouldn't let him go outside to play. I then believed the pain medication I gave him had an adverse affect b/c he was so freaking hyper and NOTHING like the hospital staff said he would be. They called in a different medication to use that evening and just said to keep him calm and not running around. RIGHT? Hey let's hop the boy up on steroids which make him super hungry, hyper and irritable THEN give him some pain meds that INCREASE the hyperactivity and you expect me to keep him calm! OK! Then fill him with juice, pudding, jello, popsicles, applesauce, slushies and ice cream for a little extra kick!! I think the withdrawal from sugary soft foods may be the worst we get. Don't get me wrong I am esctatic that his post-op status is amazing but I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop since I have heard some awful stories. I just keep saying well now that he can actually breath and he doesn't have rotten food in his throat he probably feels so much better than the pain is almost worth it! The worst part right now is just chasing him and listening to him scream while I put in the ear drops other than that you wouldn't believe he had surgery two days ago if you saw him. The first day he ate 5 popsicles, jello, apple sauce, bunch of juice, 2 slices of cheese pizza (w/o the crust) and a cupcake. Unbelievable I know! We actually even let him go to the end-of-the-year football party the night of his surgery since he was just his normal self and had asked ALL day if he could go to the "football birthday party". I told him he could go BUT if he ran AT ALL or jumped AT ALL he had to go home with Mommy. As we were walking into the party he was walking REALLY slow with his arms stretched out to the sides as if walking on a balance beam. When I said, "Hurry up baby it is cold!", he responded with, "No Momma I can't go fast or you will make me miss the football birthday party!" Him eating pizza at the party was "ify" for me but the doctors said he could have pizza as long as it was soft. I was very scared I would regret that decision into the wee morning hours if he woke up in pain. I was told MANY times to make sure I gave him his pain medicine AROUND THE CLOCK and to even set an alarm to WAKE HIM UP and give him medicine. Ok the plan was to wake up at 3am and give him a dose that would last until 8am.......yep you guessed it I did NOT wake up at 3am. I woke up at 5am scared to death to wake him up for fear he would be in pain. Luckily unlike Elijah, Isaiah is not to hard to wake up. I woke him up and said I need to give you some medicine baby. In his sweet sleepy gruff surgery voice he says, "Otay Momma!", took his medicine then laid back down. I starred in awe at my sweet sleepy little boy when he lifted his head and grumbled, "tan I *garble garble grunt garble* for my birdday?" then laid down. Unsure of what in the world he said, I simply replied yes and while walking out of the room in love with this sweet baby of my mine he sits up and says, "Momma I wuv you buncha bunches! See you in da morninG!" Wake up to morning two.....throat a little sore but I believe it was from sleeping and not drinking for several hours. He was hungry but didn't want anything I gave him so I just told him to keep drinking until he felt better. I wondered if this was the beginning of his little surgery downfall.....NOPE I cleaned all morning while he watched cartoons and played with his cars then after his nap he ate. Yesterday he ate ice cream, jello, a little applesauce, about 5 popsicles and 2 bowls of macaroni and cheese. I think the worst part is going to be getting him back onto a regular diet because he is totally in love with the whole "popsicle as a meal" idea!! They say days five through seven are actually the worst b/c the scab will fall off and the throat will basically be raw but I have high hopes for our little soldier boy that he will continue his march in recovery!

SOLDIER BOY

Got to bed a little before 2am then laid there panicking that I wouldn't wake up to the 5:30am alarm clock so I have no clue what time I actually fell asleep but I know I woke up on time and didn't sleep long. Isaiah was already awake when I went in to get him and he is just a riot. I cut his hair last night and upon going potty and getting ready to leave he says abruptly, "What did you do to the back of my hair?" My response was, "I cut it like the rest of your hair!" "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY HAIR???" Honestly it looks just like the other 50 times I've cut his hair so I am unsure of the problem. I asked if he wanted me to fix his hair before we left and the little squirt said, "Yes Mommy I can't go like this I need my hair fixed!" Funny that this morning of all mornings he wanted his hair fixed when he gripes every morning that I fix it. I think it may have been a stall tactic!! Upon arrival at the hospital he whined, "I've awweady been here before! I want to go home now!" I found it odd that he remembered this hospital since he was only there once for his first ear tube/adenoid removal 18 months before.

He was calm, timid, whiny and grouchy but for the most part very good ~ no end of the world fits before surgery!! He kept kissing Little Bill and telling him everything will be "otay"! They had given him his "happy juice" when he then began the drug induced happy phase and started to beat himself in the head with Little Bill.

They took him back promptly at 8:15am. The crocodile tears rolled down his sweet little cheeks as they took him away. I tried to reassure him everything would be ok and he could have a popsicle when he was done but I just wanted to cry and hug him tight! That is the worst feeling ~ handing them over for the unexpected and knowing it will cause them pain! We went to eat breakfast in the new cafeteria. During his first surgery we ate breakfast here before they even had the cafeteria and they had GREAT food and amazing cinnamon rolls. Cafeteria built ~ food quality down! The cook was talking about how amazing her pancakes were and how they tasted just like heaven. Not sure how heaven "tastes" but I am a bona fide pancake lover so I got one! This pancake was no one near mine and now I KNOW mine taste like heaven or pretty darn close!! First of all I had grabbed the plastic silverware and the knife would NOT cut through my PANCAKE! HMMM......I then went to get real silverware and still found it hard to cut through. The actual taste of the pancake was not bad after sawing off a bite BUT the bottom of the pancake was so hard I had to pray I wouldn't chip my teeth!! Not kidding! The syrup was not good either! I took some extra stuff out to the car then we went to the waiting room where we only waited about 10 mins when Dr. Cutie-pants-love-him-for-his-patience-and-fixing-our-baby-boy walked in. I said, "wow speedy gonzalez you are right on the nose with that 45 min surgery!!"

Here is the news we got:

• surgery went great
• he was sleeping in recovery
• his adenoids were gone but his tonsils were huge and pushing into all kinds of other areas? (didn't ask!)
• His tonsils were really big and nasty with gunk stuck into little crevices
• He actually had pockets of ROTTEN FOOD embedded in his tonsils, This could explain the horrid breath of a small forest creature devouring spoiled food! Yes I gagged in disbelief at this news! I did NOT know this was even possible and that is beyond disgusting!!!
• He replaced the tubes but had to recreate another hole in the right ear because he had a large hole in the ear drum that had to be patched.
• They will be watching this hole/patch to make sure it heals properly b/c it may need more repairing when he is older!
• He wants to retest his hearing once the patch has been on for a few weeks

Back to recovery for our angry groggy little bear to flip out until he truly awakens!! Not a happy camper! He does not like the hospital!! He only wants an orange popsicle and all they have is blue! He does not like their apple juice ~ explaining it is nasty! (Good thing I brought along our own!) Totally despised the IV in the hand and would NOT calm down until it was out! Flipped out because he did not like the band aid they placed on his hand upon removing the IV! His mouth hurt, he wanted his tonsils back and he wanted to go HOME! He wanted to wear his own pjs and not their gown! He wanted to wear his OWN socks instead of the slipper socks they gave him!

The humorous side of the recovery room was this: Isaiah had taken his "Little Bill" doll into surgery with him. You know Little Bill (Cosby) the cartoon character who wears the same shirt daily with a giant B on it. The Doctor says, "Oh look a little Barack Obama doll!" The nurses responded while laughing, "No Doc I think that is Little Bill!" Seriously a Barack Obama doll?! That would be weird!

We got back home at 10:45am. They had said to try to give him anything soft that he might actually eat then give him his pain medicine around noon. They also explained that the majority of kids WON'T eat a thing but he absolutely has to stay hydrated so as long as he is drinking he will be fine. So the plan was to come home, attempt to feed the boy, give him the pain meds and then take a forever long nap with him!

Plan not working out so well for me! It is now 1:15pm and the only sleep he has done since waking up from surgery is about 10 minutes during the car ride home. He came home ate a snack pack of applesauce and an orange popsicle. He then watched cartoons with Daddy until he could take the medicine at 12pm. I gave him the medicine at 11:50pm and little soldier boy is now talking on the phone to Chai while playing with cars and he just finished his purple popsicle!! He is now crying b/c he just RAN in here to get his shoes so he can go outside which is not allowed right now! Calgon take me away! I pray the rest of his recovery is this easy but I've heard the first day is the easiest and around the fifth day is the worst!! You will hear about it if he coughs up some big 'ol nasty smelling scab ~ trust me! *gagging....* Dear Lord make his recovery a speedy and pain free one.....pretty pretty please!

HIGH HOPES FOR THE BABY BOY

So Wed the 12th Isaiah had to go in for his 6mo ENT checkup and we came out with way more than expected! He officially has "birdies" in his ears which is a playful way for the Doc to get the kids attention and not be scared complete with birdie sound affects but now Isaiah thinks that there are birdies in his ears. I guess that is better than the before believed bugs which he now says are dead. One of Zay's tubes had fallen out however the other remained. I took this opportunity to discuss Zay's breathing/allergy issues with the cutie patootie young Doctor boy. I talked to him about ALWAYS being "stopped up" and a "snot factory" to put it nicely. I told him how he has been on several meds over the last six months that only seem to work about 7 to 10 days then I might as well give him a syringe of water b/c the med becomes that ineffective. I REALLY WISH HE COULD BE ALLERGY MEDICATION FREE but so far that has not been the case. He was med free for about nine months but the past six months he hasn't been so lucky! I told him about the snoring, his awkward sleeping positions, unpredictable sleeping patterns and the horrid breath of a small forest creature devouring spoiled food. Seriously his breath is bad and that was supposedly going to be remedied by the removal of the adenoids. I also told him about his pediatrician telling me he needs his adenoids removed when I informed her they were done about 18mos prior. I also brought up the fact that I was supposed to take him to the lab so they could take blood for further allergy testing since the nurses couldn't get any blood after three tries. I could just say I am lazy but I will tell the truth and go with sympathetic to my three yr old son and say I just didn't want him to have to endure that again even though he is quite the trooper. I just wish he didn't have any of his little "issues" but what Mom doesn't! ANYHOW the doctor took a look in the ears, nose and throat since that is what a ENT does..ha....and he was NOT pleased!! One of his adenoids had in fact grown back! I was never informed that this was even possible and wondered if maybe it was just left from the original surgery until my friend informed me being the freak that she is (love you Shan) she had to have hers done four times!! Freak huh...told you! He also said he seriously needed his tonsils taken out and soon since they are cm. from closing his throat! He said this should solve the horrid forest creature breath, the snoring and the restless sleep since he will finally get air. He also told me to watch him at night for erratic breathing, sleep apnea and gasping. If this occurs, call him immediately and go to the hospital!! WHAT! OK now I will NOT sleep AT ALL and I'll be the Mom accidentally waking her baby up by constantly holding a mirror in front of his mouth to check his breathing especially since the surgery isn't scheduled until Dec. 9th. They gave him meds to hopefully reduce swelling and scheduled surgery to replace his tubes (YEAH!!! I truly think his tubes and his ENT are gifts straight from God! They changed his whole little world!), remove the adenoid that grew back, take all the blood needed for allergy testing while under anesthesia and remove his tonsils. Dear Lord, I pray this will be the end of all his problems and he will soon be drug free! I truly love our ENT and not ONLY b/c he is a cutie patootie!! He also told me that he may not even have allergies or they could be minor and most of his issues could be caused by the tonsils but that won't be known until after the surgery and testing. PRAY HARD!! Well the weekend came along with a fever and coughing. I didn't worry about it until the sleeping stopped and we got about 8 hours in TWO nights. I called the on-call ENT Sunday night who said to go the pediatrician first thing Monday. We did!! More antibiotics, steroids and after she talked to the ENT surgery was moved up to TOMORROW Nov 24th! They discussed it and decided the surgery could NOT wait until Dec 9th because his throat is closing faster than expected. I was then told more things to look for, keep him out of his little preschool and told to call with ANY changes but they wanted to get the antibiotics through him before the surgery if at all possible! OK so tomorrow morning we will be at the hospital at 6:45 am and surgery will begin at 8:15am. If everything goes well, we should be home around 11am and I will be able to blog...oops I mean clean house...while the baby boy sleeps in a drug induced pain-free state for days or so I am told! Pray for the hand of God to lead the surgery, for my baby to be ok even better than before, ease through the expected bad next few days and hopefully this operation will take care of all of his problems!! It is funny how tonsil removal surgeries differ from one Mom to the next! One will talk about how bad it is and the next tells you what a blessing it was and it wasn't that bad! I am going to pray for Shan and Quin's experience since the situations are a little more similar than others I have heard. I am hoping that since his situation is so bad now that the surgery will be more of a relief than a pain otherwise I am shipping him to Shan's so Quinlynne can take care of her man!!

TUBE TIME

Yesterday Isaiah had his ear surgery. We had to be at the Tulsa Spine and Specialty Hospital (71st & HW 75) at 6 a.m. Now we all know that I am an insomnaic and hate mornings especially early morning appointments!!!! I went to bed at 1:30 a..m. and woke up at 4:50 a.m. sometimes I amaze myself with how stupid I can be! Isaiah did really really well!! No end of the world tantrums except for when they put him on the scale then decided they didn't need his weight that bad!! He went into surgery at 7:15 and we went to eat breakfast in the mini cafeteria. It was actually good! Dr. Vaidya came back at about 7:50 and said everything went well. He said Isaiah had even more fluid than he had originally thought and he was surprised he talks as much as he does because there is no way he was hearing very much at all. His adenoids were "huge and nasty" but gone!!! Are adenoids ever not nasty? I hope this fixes all of my baby's problems like the constant bad breath, hearing and speech probems and the 24/7/365 runny nose. The doc said his breath would actually get worse for awhile and would "test the love for our child because it will be like breath from an animal that eats its own feces". Did he read my blog??? So far so good he woke up at about 8:45 and we got to go in and see him. I was ready for the screaming fit I was told would occur due to the anesthesia but it didn't happen. WHAT? No my child was the only quiet one of the bunch - now that is the true shocker!! They said he slept so long that he probably slept off more of the anesthesia than the others. He saw me said "Unt juice!" He downed two cups of juice, they took out his IV, we were home and he was in bed by 9:50 a.m. I had to stay up because Elijah had his spring music program at school at noon. When I got home Isaiah said "HI Mommy" and was eating. He is truly amazing - the kid has had two surgeries in 9 mos and both times you wouldn't even know he had anything done by that night. Then it was time for the ear drops or WWIII! Isaiah is doing really well and hasn't even had any of the after effects they said he would have. No blood coming from his ears and no bad breath YET! He will have his first hearing test in two weeks. I am willing his results be the best possible!!

FINALLY!

Isaiah got RSV when he was 9 mos old and ever since then it has been just one thing after another with that boy - things that aren't even related but that is when everything began! In the past 11 mos, Isaiah has had 10 ear infections and they are getting harder and harder to cure and of course he gets diarrhea with all antibiotics so then he gets diaper rash. I feel sorry for the poor kid because I am sure he is more sick of it than I am. Well today we went to see an ENT named Dr. Vaidya and he was an amazing doctor. He was great at explaining everything and really good with Isaiah who by the way has screamed at every doctor since he went through the whole RSV deal. I do mean scream!! Isaiah didn't even wimper there even at the hearing test and ear pressure test (I don't know the actual name!). Isaiah will be getting tubes in his ears and his adenoids removed on May 1!! I know it may sound odd to want your child to go through that but I can't wait for my baby to feel better. It makes me sad to think that all this pressure in his ears has been causing him pain even if it isn't infected! He has significant hearing loss that the doctor "hopes" will be recovered! On the ear pressure test his line was completely flat which to my understanding means his ear drum is not even vibrating enough to register because of all the fluid in his ear. He said his hearing test results were right on the verge of what will normally be recovered and that which is often permanent. However he said he would be worried about it more if he was older because hearing test results are not as reliable at his age because they may not turn their head when they first hear the noise instead they may wait until it annoys them which totally fits his personality. He said we won't know for sure until he gets the tubes and gets a little older for some other hearing tests. I've wondered for awhile if he might have trouble hearing especially when he has an ear infection. If he isn't facing me then I can call his name about ten times before he turns around but again he is very stubborn so he could just be ignoring me and that is what I want to believe right now! Plus when he has an ear infection he doesn't speak as clear which could be the case for any child but he doesn't talk as well as Elijah did at this age but then comes the fact that each child is different. He is also a REALLY loud child which he said is because everything sounds muffled to him so he has to be loud to hear himself - how sad is that. Basically I am trying to be hopeful that he has no permanent damage but I always have my best friend in mind because her son had the same problem with the doctor sending her to an ENT much later than he should have and he still has some hearing loss. I am trying really hard to be hopeful because right now I could easily go the other way! The funny part is every parent wants their kid to do their best well I was doing just that in the hearing test like it was some kind of competition. He was sitting on my lap and I heard the noise when it started. He wouldn't turn his head until it was kinda loud but the whole time in my head I was thinking "just turn your head, come on turn your head, please hurry". For now I am believing everything is going to turn out for the better and hope the doctor's prediction for better sleep in Isaiah's future will come true!!!