This wasn't something I originally posted about last week, but we had a meeting with 2 Early Intervention specialists last week about his crawling. Originally, his doctor was a bit concerned at his 9 month check up because he wasn't moving at all (no rolling, crawling, not really motivated to do anything), but said to give it a month. We did, and still nothing, so I called early intervention around 10.5 months to get the ball rolling on the process (which is a phone screen, an in-person meeting with the parent and case manager, then an in-home evaluation). Since there were a number of steps, by the time the therapist appointment rolled around, Liam had been doing his unique one-leg up crawl for about 2 weeks (video here) and just a few days before the appointment, started crawling the regular way. Go figure! I kept the appointment anyway, and thankfully, everything was fine and he didn't qualify for their services. They said that while his gross motor skills did get the lowest scores on their evaluation out of all the areas they test for, it was still in the normal range (and he had higher than average scores in cognitive skills, fine motor skills, and social skills---yay!) So that was a relief.
The next appointment he had was with an ENT to determine whether or not he needed tubes for his chronic ear infections. When the dr. examined him, he said that though his ears were no longer infected (he had already finished up that last round of antibiotics since it was just a 5 day dose), he still had quite a bit of fluid in both ears. After his initial exam, we were sent to the audiology department for a hearing screen; the doctor had some concerns once he read in his file that he had viral meningitis back in July (one of the only lasting effects of that is potential hearing loss); so he already had that potential risk, and now he's had fluid in his ears since January. He did "borderline ok" on the hearing screens, which the doctor translated to him having some hearing loss at this point. But she said the good thing is, it appears to be just temporary from all of the fluid, and NOT anything long-term from the meningitis. PHEW!
All of that being said, the doctor felt the best decision for him right now was to get tubes put in. I have to admit, as much as it makes me nervous for him to have any type of surgical procedure (even though this seems quite simple), I was relieved when they said he needed them. We have been doing this back and forth business with him for over 4 months now....ear infection, antibiotics, seems to clear, starts showing symptoms again, more fluid, wait a few days, infected again, more antibiotics...ugh. This poor baby hasn't been able to hear properly in months, and is probably uncomfortable most of the time. The surgery is scheduled for Monday, I will be sure to post an update then.
Fortunately, despite all of the illnesses going around, I have 2 of the happiest (and cutest) kids around :)
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