It's Friday, Firday, Friday! - Weekly recap with some not so fun news mixed in :(

These cards seriously crack me up....one for every occasion! 

I have not posted pictures of us and the boys in a couple days, mostly because I have anxiously been awaiting the arrival of our Christmas cards and getting ready to send those out....I am REALLY excited about this years photo! It's going to be great.  We took our pictures with the one and only Tanja at Contemporary Expressions last Saturday.  Man is she AMAZING! Seriously, we were there maybe 20 minutes....and she got some great shots!

I skipped over the week my mom came out here to visit, mostly because everyone (besides me for once in my life) was horribly sick, so we really just sat around all weekend/week while she was here....seriously, I think I got 2 errands done :-/

He was being too quite....this is how we found him

Madagascar 3 Movie Night

Another movie night

The boys and I had a pretty busy week full of errands and LOTS of doctors appointments.  Zach had two this week - Monday and Thursday, and I had one on Wednesday.  Z also had therapy Tuesday....the list goes on.  Somehow I managed to find time to write a post today in between cleaning, bed laundry, lunch, emissions testing for my car, Costco, and a quick stop to Cinnabon to get some breakfast for the weekend ;-)

A little more about Zach's Doctors appointments this week....last Friday he went into the school district office to get his hearing checked again (he failed 8 months ago...no big deal they said, colds are going around, come back in a couple months).  We were finally able to get in again to see them, and he failed again - hummmm :-/  They suggested I call his pediatrician to have his ear drums/fluid checked.  Curious, since the kid has not had one single ear infection and has never showed any signs that his ears were bothering him (tugging, pulling etc.).  

We went in to see his doctor Monday morning.  She cleaned some wax gunk (it was actually really nasty) out of one of his ears, shined a light in them and blew a little air.  His ear drums were not moving as much as they should when she blew the air in, so she gave us a referral to see a Pediatric ENT.  I called them, and it was either be seen on Thursday, or wait nearly 3 weeks.  So of course we took the Thursday appointment.  

Thursday morning we went in, did some basic doctors office stuff which Zach really enjoyed at this point (standing on the scale, height, blood pressure, etc).  The nurse asked a bunch of history questions, and then the doctor came in.  They had a fancy TV that was hooked up to the ear scopes so that I could see what the doctor was looking at/talking about.  He shined a light in (which looks like the scope you see at every doctors office), all looked fine.  He blew a little air, and the drums were not moving...hum, it does not look like anything is behind his ear drum stopping it from moving.  He shined the light in Braden's ear too, so he could feel special, and I could see how a "normal" ear drum should move.  

SIDE NOTE: The ear is something I am less familiar with, so for the sake of explaining things (and your understanding) I found this extremely fancy picture on google...I really just wanted to show you that the eardrum is a clear membrane that you/doctors can see through into the inner ear where all the small bones are kept that vibrate and create sound.  The ear drum membrane is impermeable, meaning fluid cannot pass through it. 

 

Okay, back to Zach: First look, nothing looked wrong, but the drum was not moving as it should be (failing to create the vibration for the auditory bones in his inner ear).

Then, the doctor pulled out this big fancy (I have used that word quite a bit today, o well, doctors these days are fancy) light scope.  He shined that into Zach's ears and I was nearly blinded.  Once he adjusted the lights a little bit I was amazed by all the pretty colors reflecting from the inside of both his ears, cool right, NOT! When he shined the fancy scope into Braden's ear there was no reflection, UTOH!  The reflections of light were coming off clear fluid that was packed to the brim behind his ear drum.  

Normally doctors can see a line of where the fluid is (imagine a glass half full of water), except his was PACKED with fluid.  This explains why he never got an ear infection, because there was no space for bacteria to grow inside his ears (the doctor also thinks that his "drainage pipes" are not open for the fluid to drain out, or a space for bacteria to enter in).  Also why no doctors ever saw it, because it was clear fluid, not discolored by any bacteria.  Poor baby has probably gone his whole life not being able to drain this fluid from his ears.  THIS EXPLAINS WHY HE HAS A SPEECH DELAY....he hears as if he is underwater all the time :(.  

So on January 9th, my baby, who is only 2, will be having his second surgery :(.  I am just excited to see how much he grows and develops in the few months after ACTUALLY being able to hear.  Hopefully he will be out of speech therapy by the time he is 3!!

The good news is that none of this has affect his spirits at all.  He is still a happy go lucky little man who loves to play with his big brother.  The two of them have so much fun together.  Almost too much fun sometimes.  This week they were getting a little out of hand so I had to separate them for a few minutes until they both calmed down.

Cute even when they are being naughty!