Kale's ears

I know lots of you have been wondering what's up with the Dude-a-Man's ears, so here's our basic rundown. When we were home in June for Andy and Katie's wedding, I took Kale into the urgent care where he was diagnosed with an ear infection (his official 2nd one). Since June we have been bouncing back and forth between actual infections and just having fluid in one or both ears. Since we have not been able to clear this up we started the tubes conversation about a month and a half ago. The final decision was made today and on Thursday, early in the morning we will head in and have them put in.

We made this decision after only having him off of antibiotics for a grand total of less than a month (since June). The rounds have been made from Amoxicillin to Omnicef, to Zithromax and back around to Amoxicillin again and a daily regimen of Zyrtec. One major concern is that he could possibly become antibiotic resistant. Probably our highest concern is his speech development. At his 12 month well baby, he was about 1 word behind where they consider normal (he had 4 out of 5), while this isn't huge, it could become an issue. We took him last week to an audiologist for an evaluation and found that at the time (with a double ear infection - since he'd been off antibiotics for 4 days) that he was hearing at about 25 decibels (15 is normal, anything above 35 is considered deaf), they called him borderline. We will re-evaluate this 4 weeks after tubes to see if he's made any improvement and I will make the call to begin Early Intervention for speech therapy evaluation. It's pretty likely that once tubes are put in we'll begin speech therapy for him just to keep him on track.

The surgery will take only about 15 minutes to complete and he will only be put out with a mask (no IV required). It will all be done at the Air Force Academy hospital by the Ear Nose and Throat doctor. He said that if all goes well we should be on our way home by 9:00am. The tubes should last about a year before they fall out and the doctor believes that we will likely have to do this at least one more time before his ears properly mature (I think it's hilarious that my HUGE baby boy has tiny ears). There will be ENT checks at 1 month and 6 months to make sure the tubes are functioning properly and haven't fallen out, and also by the pediatrician at any well baby check ups. If you feel you'd like to know way more than any person (aside from the doctor) should know about this you can look here or here. Prayers that all goes well with the surgery and recovery are very appreciated (and also for his mom's peace of mind since I'm about to lose it worrying about him and this whole thing).