DS Minute: Ears

If you have never had how the ear works described to you in detail, you need to make sure that happens; pronto. Luke now confidently tells us that sounds go in his ear to the snail and then to his brain. That is the 2-year-old, half listening while sticking play-do in his nose, explanation. When you get the full version, you will be amazed. Trust me.

Paula, the amazing woman from The School for the Deaf and Blind who is coming to work with us to help Caleb reach his fullest hearing potential, explained to us how the ear works to help us better understand what is going on with Caleb. Basically, due to the standing fluid in his little ears, he has what they call, "Conductive hearing loss." This form of hearing loss is usually fixable, which is why Dr. Grimmer, Caleb's ENT, recommended we have tubes put in Caleb's ears to drain that fluid out.

Up until last week, his hearing was what we would hear if we were under water and someone was shouting at us. Very muffled. When that fluid gets drained, it will allow all the ear workings to work how they need in order to allow sound to make it's journey to the brain, unobstructed.

Side note, Caleb did amazing with his little procedure. He went in smiling, even though he had not had anything to eat in 6 hours and came out smiling. All of his doctors and nurses were amazing at letting us know what was going to be happening. His anestheiologist was this goofy older gentleman, whom the nurse said was their most experienced on staff who often took the more complicated patients (i.e. Down Syndrome with their tricky low muscle tone and narrow airways). He was very excitable and hilariously blunt. It brought a smile to our hearts as we hear him exictably ask Caleb if he was ready to breathe some gas as he took him back to surgery. Which, did you know the gas can be flavored?! That made us laugh as well when they asked what flavor gas he would prefer...he's 6-months-old; I don't think he cares. But, we chose strawberry for him.

Right before his little procedure

Right after! The beauty of breast-milk is that it is easily digestible so Mr. Caleb was able to eat right away, as much as he wanted.

Ready to go home

A few hours after his procedure...Like nothing even happened

Paula will be visiting with us weekly to help Caleb make the most of his hearing, as well as play a little catch up, now that his tubes are in place. We are excited for this journey and opportunity to learn more about Caleb's ears! That may sound silly, but we are finding that everything is very interconnected when it comes to the body and development. We also learned that gross motor physical development correlates with speech and language development, mainly because they are so close to one another in the brain.

This week, we are working on helping Caleb pair a sound with an object. First, recognizing that there is a sound occurring, then taking him to the source so he can understand that each sound has a source and to look for that source when he hears something. We are also pairing our words with the signs for the object. ASL is awesome how literal it can be!

We often get looks of befuddlement from the kid as we gasp, "Do you hear that sound, Caleb?!" Then run him into the laundry room to feel and hear the washing machine up close or to the bottle warmer as it heats his bottle. Luke is the best at this exercise. Especially when it comes to sirens blaring down our street.

Sorry for letting my nerd side show at how excited I am to learn all this. Now, go YouTube how the ear works and never take the miracle of ears for granted, again!