Many of us with special needs kids have visited the ENT at some point in time.
They deal with everything to foreign objects up kids noses to ruling out medical issues causing your precious not to talk.
We recently just visited them for the lader. I quickly had to educate myself on all the lingo since up until this point this was one of the few specialists my children had yet to visit.
I guess your wondering what ENT stands for, and if you already know, your probably waiting for the hysterical story I have to go with it; cause you know I do.
As defined by Webster’s, tells us the ENT stands for ears, nose and throat. So basically any reason beyond what your PCP (primary care physician) can take care of you would be referred to an ENT.
In our case, SB wasn’t talking. Well she was but it took her awhile and when she did it didn’t make sense. We knew Diva was delayed as well and like before, I knew the first step was to rule out an hearing issue. (tip: if you have concerns your little one isn’t talking on schedule or right, simply get a hearing test. Most insurances will cover it. Just call them before time and see what you need to do. We had to go to our child’s PCP and tell them our concerns.)
I was able to email my daughters PCP and ask her to put in a referral for a hearing test. Due to my daughters medical background she agreed it needed. Within a week we were in the audiologists office.
There were two types of tests they preformed. A tempatic and what I call the “bank vault” test.
For the first test they stick a ear plug thingy into one ear and take some readings. SB failed.
For the bank vault test they put you (dependent on the age and child) and the child in a bank like vault and close the door. Sorry to all you claustrophobic people. There is no sound getting in and out. Then they test at what decibel range your child can hear at. For SB they kept having to turn it up. She passed, but not in a acceptable range.
They told me to come back once a month every three months. This mama don’t play games. I immediately emailed her PCP again and said give me a referral to ENT. She did.
The next week we were in the ENT office and within 5 minutes had the surgery scheduled for her tube placement.
Yesterday, she had her tubes in. Last night she said “my shoes” or at least a variation of it. Proudest mommy moment!
She is doing great. But get very mad at the nurses after the surgery. Seems the only way she would stop screaming like a wild woman was to keep the Popsicles coming. They finally cut her off and had a little “come to Jesus” meeting with her. Kinda like a intervention with a addict. Shortly after she wouldn’t calm down and they were afraid she’d end up in the ER with head trama from throwing her body around like a rag doll. So we were discharged immediately.