Worries...

Are you dizzy yet? This very blurry picture was taken by Annie at the doctor's office this last week. Annie has been in speech for the last year and a half, but had never had her hearing tested- in Manila I knew she wasn't old enough to cooperate, in the Azores they told me they didn't have a sound booth to do the testing in, and then here they wanted to wait until Annie was more comfortable with them. Anyway, I eventually brought it up again, she had a very iffy hearing test result from the speech teacher, who sent us to the district audiologist. His testing showed that there was a definite hearing loss, and her tympanogram (a test where they measure the elasticity of the eardrum- or something like that) was flat, which usually means that there is fluid behind the eardrum. This was Price's problem 8 years ago, and he had tubes put in to fix it. I was assuming it would be something similar for Annie.

Anyway, I took Annie to the pediatrician, who is a little worried- she says the fluid behind her eardrums is not enough to account for the flat tympanogram (they repeated the test at the doctor's office, so it's not just that the fluid has lessened). So now we have an appointment in a couple of weeks with a pediatric ENT at Primary Children's. I'm not sure right now what this all means, only that there is a possibility that this whole thing will be more complicated than I want it to be. Updates after the doctor's appointment....