Tag Archives: L’s hearing

Everyday Life

One More Drs. Appointment

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First of all, Lena’s hearing appears to be totally fine. They want her retested in 6 weeks to make sure, as she had a bit of a cold last week, but no one is concerned now.

We had another doctor’s appointment today, for Ilya at the pediatrician. This doctor was recommended to me by a fellow adoptive parent, as well as another friend. I think generally we are a pretty mainstream family, but we do sometimes lean to the side of crunchy. One thing, my kids drink Kefir, instead of milk. The doctor mention last week he thought milk was better, in terms of protein and fat. Today, he said he was totally wrong about what it was– thinking it was like a cream soda, but he thinks I should transition my kids to milk. So they don’t stand out when they go to school. Seriously. Now, my kids will drink milk, but they prefer Kefir. Kefir is very similar in protein and fats to milk, but also offers probiotics. But, you know, other kids might think my kids are weird if they like kefir. I mean, what if the other kids find out that my kids don’t know what cheetos are? Or that they eat spinach and broccoli and LOVE all kinds of fruit? Uh-oh. Scarred for life. I also think this is funny because we live in a relatively progressive town, with lots of other families who consume the same sorts of foods. If anyone local wants to recommend a pediatrician or a family practice, please do. 
Lola and Deepa, my parents, left on Sunday. The kids and I are still recovering from them leaving. Lena took it the hardest for sure (mega tears as they drove away), but Ilya and I are also quite bummed and having a hard time returning to the swing of things. This has also brought up the subject of how Aaron and I aren’t ever going to leave them and Lola and Deepa may have gone home but they still miss them and love them. Knowing we can always get them on the phone helps too. 
Everyday Life

Doctors Visits

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This week has been a whirlwind of doctor’s visits. My parents are in town, my mom since Saturday and my dad just since this afternoon. I try to schedule appointments when my mom is around to help me out. On Tuesday, we had a check-up at the International Adoption Clinic, in KC, about an hour away. I really thought I scheduled it for 9:45, but it turns out it was at 9… meaning we had to leave the house at 7:45… yuck! On the way home from that, I got a call from the school district’s audiologist. They have two audiologists and when they talked about Lena and took into consideration her trouble with articulation and my concerns, they decided I should have her hearing checked sooner. She recommended we go to the KU Med Center, our other option being back to Children’s Mercy (where we had been just minutes before). She said she was certain that KU Med Center had the equipment best for testing Lena. I wasn’t sure if we’d need a referral and Lena needed some vaccinations, so right after I got off the phone with the audiologist, I called a well-recommended pediatrician’s office, to see if we could schedule an appointment. They had one, today at 8:45. Awesome, that meant my mom could watch Ilya and I could go with just Lena. So, we had that this morning. As soon as we got home from that appointment, I called the audiology clinic at KU Med and they’d JUST had a cancellation for an appointment… tomorrow. So, tomorrow, we will be heading back over to Kansas City, to find out the extent of Lena’s hearing loss. Lots of doctors visits. I still need to take Ilya to the pediatrician sometime and they both need to go to the dentist. The doctor said she will probably need a lot of work… I had noticed what looked like a cavity, so I am not surprised.

I was really lax on doctor’s appointments for the first few months. I just wanted to make sure that the kids weren’t constantly being thrust into uncomfortable, stressful situations. They both seem to bounce back from scary situations much better now and respond to being comforted, so I am comfortable with it.

In exciting news, after our evaluation last week, I called the school district about Pre-K and was told that Aaron makes too much to qualify the kids for Pre-K through them. Well, the doctor told me that both of them should qualify for developmental Pre-K. I am so glad. I was looking at private preschools and while I think that Ilya would really benefit from going to preschool, we weren’t sure how we’d manage the large additional cost. I’d love to send Lena to preschool too and I might consider if she is eligible and would not be in Ilya’s class. Otherwise, I’d probably just wait until the following year.

I’ll keep you all updated on Lena’s visit tomorrow. I am not sure when I’ll get a chance to blog, as I think I’ll be busy the next couple of days. I’ll try to find some free time ASAP!

Everyday Life

Lena’s Hearing Test

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Lena had her more extensive hearing test today. She cooperated so well for the whole thing, sitting there nicely and paying attention to the audiologist. The audiologist said that she does appear to have mild hearing loss in both ears, but it could be related to her not understanding the tasks. But, she did seem to be doing very well with everything. She had blocks which she put in a bucket whenever she heard the tone. The audiologist asked us to come back in six months to retest her and see if she has the same results.

Lena does struggle to pronounce certain sounds, but overall, she seems to do fine hearing. I am not very concerned as we do not even know for certain if she does have hearing loss. Even if she does and needs hearing aids or some other kind of assistance, I don’t think it is a big deal. If mild hearing loss is the greatest of our problems, we’re doing okay.

Lena really caught on and enjoyed the coin game yesterday, in preparation for her hearing test. I got out the headphones I got for her for her plane ride home, hooked them up to my computer and used this website to try a bunch of different beep sounds with her. I put the computer on my lap so she could not see if I was clicking. At the school, it was a bit different, but it was the same concept and she caught on quickly.

Everyday Life

Development Screening

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Ilya and Lena had their development screenings through the school district. Ilya passed everything, but he had some trouble with the color test. Lena also had trouble with that. She said it could be the language barrier or fine motor skills and not related to seeing colors. I don’t think they have any difficulty as they can easily recognize colors at home. Their only other recommendation for him is that we continue working on sounds with him, but he passed the articulation screen.

Lena passed her vision test and the early screen inventory (motor skills, language, etc). However, they want to check her hearing again and continue screening her for speech and articulation to see if she might need assistance in that area. She passed the middle-ear screening and the visual inspections of her ears was fine, but the hearing test in her left ear is what they’re concerned about. We are going to do a more in-depth hearing test tomorrow.

The only thing that surprised me was that Ilya passed his articulation screening. Not that he is very difficult to understand, but he does struggle with certain sounds. I am not surprised that they said Lena is having a hard time with articulation… I honestly would not be surprised if she does have some sort of hearing loss. She sometimes struggles to repeat sounds we make, even trying them over and over again.

I am very curious to hear how her hearing test goes tomorrow… I am fine with whatever the results are, but I am ready to know so we know how to move forward. The audiologist asked me to prepare her for it by getting her familiar with who Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse are and playing a game where she puts coins in a cup when she hears “beep”. I showed her the characters and tried to play the coin game with her. She was far more interested in putting the coins in the cup than waiting for me to tell her. Right now she is sitting here with the coins putting them in the cup and dumping them out again. I am waiting until she loses her fascination with them to see if she’ll listen to me then.