Deliver me from ENTs

Pictures from a Sunday morning with Daddy.....


The poor little butter bean. On Tuesday morning, we had yet another ENT take a stab at getting tubes into Lois's tiny ears. And as expected, this dude wasn't able to complete the job either. You are all familiar with my ranking system for the various doctors in Lois's life, right? I'm not sure this clown even makes it onto the scale. The story is much too detailed to explain in full here, but suffice it to say my head nearly exploded throughout the process of dealing with this dude - and several times I felt my inner "Bob Steele" screaming to come out. (You'll need to know Pops to fully appreciate what a disaster that would have been.)


It wasn't ALL bad news. While Lois was under anesthesia, they performed an ABR on her. That's an Auditory Brainstem Response test. It involves electrodes and a series of clicks and some brain waves. And Lois passed with flying colors. What does that mean? It means Lois doesn't have any nerve related hearing issues. Her hearing problems are conductive. In other words, her small ear canals, her over production of wax, and her nearly horizontal Eustachian tubes that cause fluid to stay behind her eardrums are all the causes of her hearing issues. They are all treatable - to some extent - and when those problems go away, Lois's hearing should return to normal.

So, since Lois was sick last week and has been taking antibiotics, there was no fluid behind her ears on the day of surgery. And Mr. Clownpants ENT man drilled all the wax out of her ears while he was in there. So he proudly announced that Lois can hear perfectly and won't need hearing aids. Are you beginning to see why Jay needed to restrain me? Next week the fluid will be back, and by tomorrow she'll be brimming with wax again and guess who won't be able to hear? So I guess we'll wait a few weeks and then me and my semi -deaf kid will start this process all over again. Can you hear my blood boiling?

On a cheerier note, here's Lois hanging out with her BFF Maddy. You'll notice Maddy is sporting her new glasses here. That's right. Lois can't hear and her BFF can't see. They make quite the pair. I like to imagine the two of them sitting in the floor together:

Maddy : "Who's there??!!"

Lois: "WHAT?"

But seriously - I am looking forward to the day when the two girls can actually play together instead of sitting across from each other and staring. Actually, Lois noticed that Maddy was having a really good time playing with that foot so she decided to get in on the action and give it a tug, too. My girl is such a delicate little flower.....

Have you noticed the hair? I had it cut - for the third time. And she still looks a mess. This time they texturized the top to try to stop it from falling straight into her face. So far it seems to be helping. Slightly. Maybe. I think.