Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Elijah's hearing, update

Well, Elijah passed his hearing test with flying colors. The doctor says that based on his hearing test results alone, he ought to be able to hear the spoken word without any trouble. However, his ears aren't quite in normal condition--they do have fluid and bubbles in them, which led the doctor to do a tympanogram (measures vibration of the eardrum). The tympanogram was also abnormal, so the doc prescribed a nasal spray to be used for six weeks, at which point we'll get him re-tested.

I'm not sure how everything fits together--he passes a hearing test easily, yet his eardrums aren't vibrating like they should? And how does a nasal spray have anything to do with the ears? I have a little more research to do.

To clarify, once I get Elijah's attention and he looks at my face, he can understand me without difficulty--it's just getting his attention in the first place that's hard to do. Perhaps he just gets so absorbed in what he's doing that he tunes out the world around him; he can be pretty intense about things like Legos and books. :)

Speaking of books--the boys went to the library with their dad yesterday, and Elijah helped pick out a half-dozen books, mostly about volcanoes and astronomy. The one that looks most interesting delves into topics like quasars, relativity, and dark matter--of course it also extensively discusses how those interesting topics relate to the theory of the Big Bang. I'll probably end up skipping every other paragraph, as I don't want to get into the Big Bang theory just yet. :)

And to conclude, a couple of pictures of the child in question. First, with a book about human anatomy. I told him to pick out his favorite page to include in the photograph, and he picked this one:

And secondly, here he is with a Lego "mountain." I know these aren't technically Legos; maybe they're Megablocks or Duplo or something. Anyway, we call them Legos. This photo is from a few weeks ago--note the old carpet, now gone. :)

2 comments:

  1. Hope everything is fine with regards to his hearing. Amelia has those moments (a lot of them...ahem!!) of when she is "into" her toys and such and looks like she doesn't hear a word your saying, but I think I've realized she does hear me, she just is into her toys a lot.

    Those are Legos (the brand) but I believe they are called duplo (same thing to me really!) they aren't the cheap plastic megablocks...sorry, I don't care for that brand for some reason! Very nice tower btw Elijah! :)

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  2. Yes, they are very proper Duplo blocks, made by Lego. So they're called Duplo Legos. Great for kids.

    I was just going to say that about Amelia, how she tunes out, even though she can hear just find. I think some kids are just like that..and some adults, too! lol

    Hope everything works out okay, though! =)

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