Zoe: Surgery, Glasses, Hearing Aids, OH MY!

Hello Friends,

Our last week and a half has been super busy. Zoe has a handful of specialists she sees every six months: at her birthday and at her "half-birthday," so we have a couple very busy weeks in February and August. Those are the months she sees her opthamologist, audiologist, ENT, and dentist.

The good news: she has no cavities (despite the difficulties involved with brushing); her cyst (in her throat) has not returned; she can see; and the tube in her right ear is functioning. We can also stop patching her eye to strengthen the bad one.

The bad (not horrible, but less than awesome) news:

• ENT

1. The tube in her left ear is not functioning.
2. It will require replacing (surgically).  
3. Her left ear is holding lots of fluid (due to the non-functioning tube).

• Audiologist

1.  Her hearing is pretty bad.
2. She may need a hearing aid.

So the plan...she is scheduled for surgery to drain the fluid and replace the tube Oct. 1st. While she is under, her audiologist will do an ABR (baby hearing test) to see if the fluid being in her ear was the problem, or if she has a loss. We will decide about a hearing aid based on those results. I don't even know how we would get it in her ear, let along make her keep it in.

• Opthamologist

1. She cannot have her eyelids lifted yet.
2. She is very farsighted.
3. My very sensory-sensitive child definitely needs glasses to see past her nose.

The plan...we wait on lifting her eyelids, and we got her fitted for some super-cute, indestructible, pink glasses with scratch-resistent lenses and a strap yesterday. We should have them in about a week or so. In the space of about two seconds, she had pulled those things off her head, flung them, and spoke angrily to me about them. She did that three different times, so we may need some prayer for her to adjust to the glasses, and for her to recognize the difference they make for her vision.

On another note, Zoe has said three words this week ( in addition to "Daddy"). She has been pointing to her hands (and ours) and saying "hand." She also is pointing to our dogs and pictures of cats and naming them ("cat" and "dog"). Cat and dog are harder to recognize because she mainly uses the beginning consonant sounds, but with the hearing deficit, that makes sense. We are really looking forward to seeing how quickly she picks up on language once she can hear better.