What? Huh?

I'm fairly certain that this is my favorite picture of my little Brennon.  Maybe ever before and after.  Look at those rolls!!!  Man, he was such a chunk!!!  Do you not want to just kiss those cheeks?!

Anyway, a couple weeks ago, in November, Brennon came to me saying that something was in his ears.  He was kind of shaking his head, like he was trying to get something out of his ear.  He jumped around a bit, and eventually said that he'd gotten it out.  No big deal.  Didn't think much of it.

A couple of weeks later, the same thing happened.  This time, however, I had noticed that he was saying What? and Huh? a lot more.  Not all the time, and nothing to give me too much concern, but enough to notice that I was raising my voice in frustration a lot more with him.  

More and more it went something like this.

Me: "Brennon, go get your shoes on."

Nothing

Me: (A little louder) "Brennon, go get your shoes on."

Nothing, although maybe he actually looked at me this time.

Me: (A lot louder, totally annoyed) "BRENNON!  Go get your shoes on!!"

Brennon: (Totally stunned at my reaction- with total attitude) "OK!"

Around the dinner table while in Florida, I was standing close enough to Brennon to actually touch him while saying the prayer.  When everyone said their Amen, Brennon whipped his head up, and in totally surprise said, "I didn't hear anything!"  I knew then that the "something" in his ears was causing some true hearing loss.

I made an appointment with the audiologist and ENT the Monday we got back.  They were so booked out, the earliest I could see them was January 5, 2015.  I didn't want to wait that long (since I thought it was just some wax buildup) so I called into our Family Practice doctor to see if they could see him sooner, and hopefully get the wax out.  When meeting with them, she checked his ears thoroughly, said there was some wax buildup, but didn't think it was enough to warrant the loss of hearing.  They dislodged the wax and sent us on our way.  I knew then that I didn't want to cancel the appointment with the audiologist.  Something was making it really hard for Brennon to hear.

We had our appointment yesterday.  He met with the audiologist that used an instrument to shoot air through the ear canal to test the pressure in his ears.  I know nothing of this machine, so couldn't tell the outcome of the test.  He then did two different tests in the hearing, sound-proof room.  Again, I know nothing about the tests, so I didn't understand what all of the red circles and blue x's meant.

After the test, the audiologist took us to our room.  The ENT came in, looked in each of Brennon's ears for maybe 3 seconds and then sat down.  I was certain, with how short a time he took to actually look in the ears, that we had wasted our time.  That the doctor had seen the hearing test, determined that all was well, did the customary check, and would send us on our merry way.  That was not the case.

"We have a problem.  There are three stages of hearing loss.  Mild, Moderate, and Severe.  Brennon falls in the Moderate stage, closer to the Severe stage than we would like.  This is serious.  He has a substantial amount of fluid behind his hears.  We need to immediately start him on an aggressive dose of antibiotics.  In three weeks time, if the ears have not drained at least 50%, we will need to schedule tubes for the following week.  The good news is: with the fluid out, his hearing will return to normal.  We will know more about how long it has been in there by how 'fluid' it is.  If it has been in there for a substantial amount of time, it could become the consistency of taffy.  If it has been a shorter amount of time, it will come out easily.  Any questions?"

I was stunned.  With 16 ear infection with Shelby the first six months of her life, I knew what it meant to need tubes.  When Tyson started showing signs of the same troubles, we didn't ask for tubes- we demanded them.  Caden should have had them, as well, but being self-pay, we couldn't afford them.  We could afford the cheap antibiotic each time, and just waited until he grew out of it.  So, when he starts asking Brennon if I'd ever talked to him about tubes, I was shocked.  This isn't what it is to get tubes!!  There needs to be crying, whining, pain, fever, sadness, sleepless nights, tugging of the ears, decreased eating.  There needs to be stress for the mom, with clear-cut symptoms of ear infections.  Instead, Brennon's only symptom was loss of hearing.  There has been none of the other symptoms of infection, and there has been none of hearing loss other than the Whats? and Huhs?  No louder TV.  No screaming when he talks.  In fact, he is our quietest kid.  Most times we are asking him to talk louder.  And yet, if this antibiotic doesn't do anything for him, he will be like the other two kids we have...being put to sleep to drain his ears and insert a tiny tube to help drain it for a while.  Weird.

I can't say that I was necessarily blindsided by this.  I mean, come on, I've been wondering if something was up for a few months now.  But this?!  I never could have imagined that he has, in essence, a double ear infection.  That he needs to have help draining the intense amount of fluid from behind his ears.  That he could have that much hearing loss without it being completely obvious.  It's not like he couldn't not hear us every moment.  It was just becoming more and more frustrating.  

And weird.

So, pray for my little B-boy, please.  It's a good 'serious' to have.  Either the antibiotic will help drain his ears and he will be back to normal, or he will have a 15 minute surgery to do it for him.  Either way, he'll be back to normal before March 1.  It's just weird that I had absolutely no indication that something like that was going on!  Just weird!  I'm still quite stunned about the whole thing, actually.