Medical Update

We have finally gotten some answers about Andrew's medical issues after being home seven months with him. Andrew has been doing great with all of his development except for speech. In fact, in some areas of his development, he is advanced. However, the speech has been a concern for awhile now. He has been at a six month level since he has come home, and now we just needed to get some answers on why. We finally had a hearing test completed after the third try just a few weeks ago, and it came back that there was some problems, so we then needed a full screening done on his hearing. We finally got that done, and it came back that he has fluid in his ears, and he is going to need tubes. In fact, they think the fluid has always been there. Just this week I finally was able to get in, into the ENT, and they want to schedule tubes to drain the fluid in the near future. Andrew also has swelling in his tonsils, and in the lining inside his ear. The Dr. gave me some medication to help with the swelling, and we are hoping that, that will do the trick. All of these things could be contributing to Andrew not learning to talk. Basically when I'm talking at a normal voice, the audiologist said he is hearing me whisper. We also have started with a program called Help Me Grow, which comes to our home once a month to evaluate Andrew's development, and because his speech is behind, we qualified for a program called MRDD, and we are getting help with speech therapy. In the mean time the speech therapist wants me to continue teaching Andrew signs, and we work trying to get him to say sounds as much as possible. Andrew is doing great at communicating with signs, and he is using around 10 of them now, and he has started saying a real word recently. He loves to say hi, when he has a phone to play with. We were just so relieved to get some answers with Andrew, and once the tubes are in I'm sure he will hear a world he never new existed!!!!!