Kale had his ct scan of his temporal bone done today and we finally feel like some progress was made. He had to be sedated and that had us a bit worried, but it really wasn't that bad. He was given some liquid to drink and about fifteen minutes later he was in dreamland. The nurse took him away and about ten minutes after that we had him back with us.
After the scan we had to head over to see Dr. Chicola so he could go over the results with us. Let me just start out by giving you an example of what doctors should never say in the presence of the patient's parents when looking at a ct scan on a monitor:
"Oh, that's not good. See that there? (pointing to an area on the screen while talking to some other medical professional) That's not good at all."
An immediate silent freak out inside of my head ensued. I looked over at Mike for fear he'd go into panic attack mode. We were able to keep it together and soon everything was explained to us.
What Dr. Chicola was pointing out were large amounts of fluid in both of Kale's ears. He asked us if Kale has been sick at all, and I told him he'd had a bad cough about a month ago, but then it went away. Nothing other than that. He mentioned that it wasn't infected fluid so it's not something that needs attention right away, but it does need to be taken care of in the very near future. He then talked to his audiologist, Keena (remember her? from an earlier post?) and she had mentioned once again how she thinks we should go to Shands for some ASSR test, but she knew that we had all decided against it for now. Then the awesome Dr. Chicola totally backed me up and said to her and to me that he remembers everything I've told him on the phone and in person regarding certain things with the audiologist at Baptist and because of the discrepancies between what she stated and what I have stated, he doesn't want to send us anywhere just yet. Instead he wants to do everything he can to help Kale before he just sends us somewhere else. Which I think is awesome.
After that we went into another room to talk some more about what needs to be done for Kale. Basically they're going to put tubes in his ears and then perform an ABR test and see if it's the fluid that has had him "failing" all those other hearing tests he had at Baptist. And if he passes, then we'll pretty much be done with all the tests. And if he fails, then we'll just go from there.
March is going to be one busy month! We have Kale's appointment at UAB on the 9th, a pre-op appt on the 16th (which just so happens to be Maile's 5th birthday) and then the actual procedure for him on the 23rd.
Anyway. Dr. Chicola is actually turning out to be a pretty awesome doctor. He talked to us a little bit on a personal level just about how we're doing and how we're handling everything. He asked about Kale's microphthalmia and said he's purposely scheduling Kale's appointments after our UAB appointment because he wants to know how everything goes. Which I think is pretty cool. He seems to genuinely care and that means so much to us.
Now we just have to hope that once the tubes are in, he passes that ABR test...
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2 comments:
Oh yay! This is such great news--phew! Thank goodness y'all are FINALLY getting answers and have a doctor that you feel you can trust and that is working *for* you instead of *against* you.
I'll keep you all in my prayers that the tubes will help. I have a feeling they will. You'd be surprised what a little fluid would do to hearing! Colt had fluid in his ears and ended up having tubes put in. Immeditely we saw a change in his behavior because he could "hear" us!
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