Tuuuuuuuuubes

Poor Sam.  He had an ENT appointment today.  Since January, he has had 4 double ear infections and busted his right ear drum once.  Clearly we have a problem here.  Chris has hearing loss due to chronic ear infections, and my brother John had to have tubes.  I figured this is where we were headed.

Other than the pediatrician and cardiologist, we haven't been to any other doctors.  The ENT office was interesting.  It was one of those offices where you just keep getting moved into progressively smaller waiting rooms over the course of two hours before you get to see a doctor.  Sam was an ANGEL during all the waiting.  I was so proud of him.  Then when they FINALLY called us back to start checking out his ears, it just went down hill.

The nurse (who looked 16) told me they had just been delivered some new equpiment, and had just been trained on it, and to please 'bare with' her while she figured it out on my son.  YEAH RIGHT.  She started trying to stick this audiology device in Sam's ear and just COULD NOT get it right.  After 5 min of Sam screaming his head off while I held him down just for this chick to NOT figure out how to use the equipment, I told her this wasn't going to work.  She left to get some back up help.  When she came back she said the Dr told her just to use the old equipment.  Unfortunately that still required ear sticking and me restraining Sam.

After 5 min of fighting with everything he had, Sam was drenched in sweat and purple.  When we were directed back into the small waiting room, every eye was on us.  Including about 20 pairs of completely freaked out little children's eyes who had clearly heard every noise Sam was making in the room.  I took Sam into the hall way so he could cry it out in privacy. 

They called us back to another small room to wait for the Dr.  Just going into a small exam room set Sam off again.  The Dr came in with Sam already screaming, so he just got right to checking out his ears.  After getting Sam settled down with a nice sucker, the Dr told me Sam's ears are full of old fluid that just isn't draining.  He suggested tubes, and soon.  FINE with me!  I'm so tired of him hurting through ear infection after ear infection.  The Dr also said he doubts Sam is hearing very well, and agreed with me that this could be adding to the reason why Sam hasn't started walking.  I told the Dr we aren't gun-shy about this surgery...we've been through much worse.  Sam won't even need an IV...they just knock him out with laughing gas and then the whole procedure lasts 5 min.  Sounds like a plan to me!

We have to get some things squared away though.  For one, Sam has to get a fresh Echo.  That will be the first thing on the list to do tomorrow!

~Kathy