Grace's 4 Y/o check

Grace had her 4 year old check on Thursday at the health clinic, it's the one they have before starting school.

I don't really have any concerns with Grace, she seems to be plodding along averagely and within the normal range for most things. The health nurse got her to write her name and draw some shapes, which she did fine. She then had an eye test, and after stuffing around and loosing concentration a bit, Grace finally finished it and passed perfectly. She was then asked a few questions and asked to point out a few things on a picture. Things like, "Can you tell me which of the kittens is not black" and "Which person is the skater". She got them all right and moved on to the last test, hearing. The nurse explained how it all worked, and made sure Grace was comfortable with the headphones and understood that she had to press the button when she heard the noise. Her left ear was fine, only she couldn't pick up the high frequencies. However, her right ear she couldn't consistently pick up any of the frequencies. She eventually could hear them, but not until they were really loud and way above the "normal" limits, especially the highest and lowest frequencies. The nurse double checked it all, but the same thing happened every single time.

Next she did the tympanomentery test, which is a puff of air into the ear to check the bounce of the ear drum. Grace's right ear once again failed dismally, with a result of 'significant middle ear pressure, consistent with Eustachian tube dysfunction", the left ear was only slightly better. The nurse reassured me that it could just be that she was coming down with something, and there may be excess mucous distorting the result. She made an appointment for 8 weeks time, to see if the loss was still there and then we'd have a plan of what to do.

I left that appointment a bit shocked and rattled that my little girl could have a moderate hearing loss and I've never even suspected it. Looking back now though, there has been so many times both Duane and I have been frustrated with her for not listening. Maybe she just couldn't hear us? She obviously can hear most things, but it would get harder for her when she starts school. Anyway, I'm fully aware of the anatomy and physiology of the ear now, after learning about it all this week at Uni. I even had a chat to my lecturer about Grace, and she just said to not hold my breath that it is from excess mucous and to keep on top of it if there are problems. She also made me feel better for not noticing anything, saying that it's rare for this to happen with no history of ear problems before. It did make me think back to Grace's 6 week check as a baby and the midwife commenting on her chunk of ear lobe missing. She told me to keep an eye out for hearing loss as sometimes deformities on the outside are indicative of internal problems. It's on her right ear too, so would make sense.

So now we just wait until the next check in 8 weeks time. I'm hoping that it is just a temporary problem, but if it's not, we will deal with it and be thankful that it's nothing worse.