Say what?

A had her 4-year physical yesterday afternoon. The usual drill for my kids in this situation is to go in, get weighed and measured, wait a long time for the doctor and then have the doctor spend not very long checking over whoever is there for the appointment and get sent home with a clean bill of health (and perhaps a shot or two in there somewhere). And we usually get a comment on how small their file is -- well, before the days of laptops and touchscreens we did -- because we almost never have to go in between yearly visits. Lucky us!

However, that was not the case for poor Miss A yesterday!!!

First off, she failed her hearing screening. Totally unexpected! She seemed to understand the directions and sat and participated willingly but her thresholds were waaay off. Normal hearing means you hear the tones as low or even lower than either 25 or 20db (depending on the tone) and her lowest thresholds were mostly at 35db or greater with only one or two at 25! Ack. So, later the doc ordered a tympanogram and those were also completely off. Very low - almost flat in both ears - which would seem to indicate a middle ear infection, fluid in the middle ear, or something similar. The doctor had already checked her ears and even checked the mobility of her tympanic membranes. Her ears looked fine and the doctor did see movement but the tympanogram showed that the movement was pretty minimal.

That leads us to the next thing - which may be the cause of the (hopefully temporary) hearing loss. She had a persistent cough all last fall/winter which was worse at night and after being out in the cold and/or running around outside. We had her seen last December about it but they sent us home saying it was probably a cold and eventually it did go away but it seemed to take a long time. This fall it started up again when the temperatures dipped. This past week was unseasonably warm and the cough went away. But, I mentioned it anyway and the doc thinks she has cold-weather-induced and/or exercise-induced asthma so she gave us a script for a steroid called Flovent HFA and this face mask/tube thingy to administer the inhalant. A is now on this very low-dose steroid inhalant (two puffs twice a day). If it seems to stop the coughing in cold weather we are to continue until mid-April! Blah. She was traumatized by the face mask last night but we finally got her to do it and this morning went much better. I was afraid that I was going to have to fight her to get her to do it every time and I was already frazzled from the day! It was already past her bedtime, she was cranky, I was tense and I probably didn't handle the situation as well as I would have under normal circumstances but we finally got her to take the meds with the face mask and this morning she was a whole lot less intimidated and took it like a champ. I was dreading the thought of forcing the stuff on her every morning and every evening for the next 6 months!

And finally, poor little baby got three shots yesterday (IPV, MMRV, and HIB...if I remember correctly). So, she says her arms are still sore at the injection sites, she won't let me take the band-aids off, and she's been rather whiney today - for good reason!

I'm freaked by the asthma thing and freaked by the potential of a hearing loss (although I've never noticed a significant "issues" in that regard so I'm hopeful that it is related to the asthma somehow...maybe some fluid in her ears or inflammation or some such). She will have a follow-up screening next week when I bring E in for her 1-year appointment. And I also already made an appointment at the University (at my old department, no less!) for her to have a complete hearing evaluation. I called the audiology director who I know and she recommended that we have the testing done regardless so that if she does have issues down the road we will have a baseline to look at.

This whole appointment threw me for a loop yesterday! I was frantically calling insurance to find out about coverage, calling the audiology department to talk to the director and make an appointment, etc... I just want to cover all bases and like I said, I'm very hopeful that it is a temporary situation - the asthma may not be temporary and that stinks for poor A - but at least maybe the meds will clear up whatever is causing the hearing issues.

So, if you are the praying type, put a little prayer in for her. She had such a rough day yesterday. She has requested that I sit and watch "Annie" with her this afternoon so I think that's just what we'll do to decompress today.

Oh, and in other news from A's appointment she weighs 43# and is 42.2 inches - 90th percentile in both so she is growing quite well and the doctor was pleased with A's reports on her eating habits, excercise, bike helmet use, and the like. So, there were good things happening at the appointment but I just wish I could have had a boring appointment as is the norm around here!

I'm just praying that next week's appointment for Miss E will be completely normal and boring. Please? I really can't take any more "excitement" around here.