Day 4 - Canals and Tunnels

For quite some time, maybe 3 years or so, we have noted Emma's ability to tune out her parents at will. She hears and responds with great selection - or so we thought. It wasn't until this spring that I began to suspect that she was actually not hearing everything because she was "ignoring" things that would have been to her advantage to hear. I called the pediatrician's office for an appointment to test her hearing. We were taken back to the test closet for the mandatory hearing screening of all 4 year olds. After placing the headphones on Emma, the nurse instructed her to raise her hand when she heard a noise. Emma decided to nod instead of raising her hand (an example of language, hearing or personality barrier?). I was standing above both Emma and the nurse and could watch as the computer was set and operated. There were times that Emma was certainly NOT hearing. So the nurse went to get another nurse to re-do the test. The very short explanation of that experience was that the nurse was looking expectantly at Emma every time she sent a noise and the whole thing was a farce. She declared that Emma was hearing just fine. Fortunately the pediatrician, said up front that the test that they do in the office isn't super reliable and that he always sides with the parents that have had a lot more time to develop a concern so he referred us to a pediatric ENT. When we went Emma did not have infections in either ear but she did have fluid in both ears. The fluid prevented her ear drum from being able to fluctuate with the sound vibrations. So he prescribed 1 month of a low dosage of antibiotics to try and kick the fluid to the curb. If it didn't work we'd be talking about tubes. (I had tubes and it all worked out well for me so no worries on that account.) And we were referred to get a "REAL" hearing test.

The doctor/technician? first looked in her ears and said that he didn't see fluid. I commented that I had hoped he wouldn't find fluid given that she had just spent the past month on antibiotics. Then he tested for fluid with a little high tech thingy and low and behold - fluid in both ears and absolutely no vibration from the ear drum. He then did the actual hearing test. The result is that there is nothing wrong with her physically but that he hearing is unequivocally hindered by the fluid. In a week and a half we will be back at the ENTs talking about ear tubes.

At the same time all that was going on, we had some kind of heavy machinery digging a tunnel through the rock that is our back yard so that we can bury the electrical cables. They came with some other machine over a week ago that was completely inadequate for tackling the coral. What were they thinking?  Really and truly I hope that everyone can appreciate that we are living on top of rock. There is no soil here that isn't imported. I knew it and yet it still blew me away to see.