Larson Family Blog: New Ears

One morning I am greeted by Vaughn saying that his ears feel like his nose is dripping. I turn in bed to look at his ear to see that blood is dripping out. Once I realize that it doesn't seem to be anything to serious, it doesn't hurt him, he can hear fine and the blood was very minimal, I realize that his description was actually quite accurate :) Oh Vaughn even in these moments he can make us smile. It had been a year since his last set of tubes and it would probably be a good idea to get them checked out. So off to the ENT we went to find out that one ear drum has collapsed. Vaughn doesn't get ear infections like the normal child he tries to surpass normalcy by having collapsed ear drums :) After this appointment of seeing how much hearing loss he actually had we realized that he is reading lips. Kids are amazingly resilient to me in how the adjust to the situation at hand. If you are whispering but Vaughn can see your lips watch what you say my friends as it will most likely get repeated. We noticed that in the car was the hardest for him as he couldn't see our faces to read our lips. The doctor recommended T-tubes which is a more permanent ear tube lasting 3 to 5 years versus the typical tube that only lasts 6 to 12 months. The surgery went great with the ear drum reopening without any difficultly which is great. If after these tubes, the ear drums collapse again it will most likely mean a much different type of surgery but right now we are just blessed that we caught it when we did and that the ear drum reopened.

It is interesting that the noises Vaughn had heard before our much louder. He's complained about church being too loud, the vaccum being too loud and of course his baby brother being too loud. I think that he's finally adjusting to the noise level but it's been interesting to hear from him what he considers "loud" ;)