Pediatric Hearing Tests

Or Scaring the Crap Out of Toddlers in the Name of Medicine

Three weeks ago we scheduled Luke's tube/adenoid/tonsil surgery for today. Last Friday, we got a call from our ENT's office telling us that he cannot do surgery any more and we were being referred to another ENT. That resulted in flurry of phone calls and another doctor's appointment yesterday. Because, you know, the surgeon actually wants to meet you before he operates on your kid.

We ended up at the ENT specialty clinic at Children's downtown. If you've never been to clinic there... well, I hope we don't have to go back. It sucks the life out of me. Everything moves so slow - so slow that they give you a paper when you sign in to explain why it moves so slow. That's all well and good unless you're riding herd on a busy toddler. At lunch time. I'll be sure that we schedule his follow up appointment at Children's South; it's just so much easier.

We started the clinic adventure with the audiologist. She checked for fluid in his ears; he has some. She asked a bunch of questions about his hearing, I told her he hears well and he already speaks in two and three word sentences. Then she put us in this really fun room with shelves full of toys. Luke got so excited. He was ready to play! And she shut us in. We didn't play.

I sat in a chair in the middle with him on my lap. There was a speaker on our right and one our left. My instructions were to hold him and pretend like I didn't hear anything. A sound came out of the right speaker, and he turned to look, right on cue. And he saw a flapping, robot penguin with a creepy light shining on it that we hadn't noticed before because it was hidden behind black glass in a dark box. It was flashlight-shining-on-your-chin-telling-ghost-stories-round-a-campfire creepy. He freaked out. I calmed him down and we got ready for the next sound. This one came from the left and it was same scenario, but not a penguin - some other robotic, flapping, creepy toy. He lost it again. We regrouped and waited. Then a bunny on a shelf above our heads start hopping and making a noise. We weren't recovering from that. He was climbing my body, shrieking and crying giant tears. I was done, on the verge of yelling for them to let us out of that Little House of Torture, when one of the ladies came in and sat with us. Apparently the first rounds of testing were inconclusive.

She distracted him with toys - the ones he was excited about playing with when we went in there - and they went through the noises again without the robotic animals. Luke Roper is nobody's fool. He was listening to the same sounds and refusing to turn his head toward the noise. I was feeling and watching him studiously ignore the sounds, and preparing my argument about how their testing was invalid since they scared the absolute crap out of him and then expected him to respond accurately. I didn't have to say anything. Either he flinched and moved his eyes enough to convince her, or she was watching my face and knowing what was coming. He passed his test and "hears really well for a child with fluid in his ears." Excuse me, but I believe that's what I said before we got locked in there. Whatever. I get why they do it, and I appreciate that they do it because if he needed intervention, that would be the place to start it. However, is it really necessary to scare the living crap out of a toddler with robotic, flapping, scary flashlight story telling animals? What do they have to do with the ability to hear sound?

Seriously, if anyone knows the answer to that, please enlighten me. I'm still a little ticked about it.