Keep Fighting the Good Fight

Today has been a pretty emotional day. Partially exciting, because we figured out that Catherine most likely doesn't have any mental deficiencies. Rather, something else is going on in her environement that is not allowing her to be able to communicate. The devastating part came at the ENT clinic.

We had Catherine's AEA evaluation, which wasn't terrible. It was very productive and I felt like Mindy, our caseworker, did a very good job of not necessarily leading us in one direction or another, but letting us process the questions and answer them effectively and at our own pace. It was determined that although Catherine is lower on the "charts," she still falls within the range of "normal." Mostly, the things that caused her to be "lower" were due to her height. No, she can't turn a door handle, because she's not tall enough. But she can manipulate a levered door handle and open the door. Just not a knob. So we know she understands the function of it, she just can't get her little hands around a door knob. She can't even hold a sippy cup without using two hands. She's just little. Her social/emotional scores were very high, meaning she has a deep understanding of other people, and she is very intuitive of other people's feelings. Sounds like her dear old mom. The only place where she was below the charts was, surprise surprise, her communication skills. Especially her expressive communication skills.

So we will begin work with a speech pathologist from the AEA. Not only that, but we have our speech evaluation with Childserve next Wednesday as well. I am not sure if they would frown on working with two different speech pathologists, but that's what I'm going to do.

From there, we went to the ENT Clinic, and immediately had a hearing test. I was surprised when the hearing test came back just fine. Not sure what the readout that the doctor gave me said exactly, but there was a "passed" for both ears, so I assume that she can hear just fine.

Then the doctor came in. He started harping on her ear infections and told me that I would know better than a doctor if she had an ear infection. He started to describe it, and I told him I realized what it was as we have already experienced it. Here are some of the things he said to us when we expressed our concerns regarding Catherine's balance, hearing, and the fact that she clearly doesn't feel good 60% of the time. Only when we are giving her ear drops and medicine like Motrin does she feel better.

"What balance issues? She seems to be walking just fine around here."
"Honestly, take her out of daycare. I know that's hard to hear, but that's the issue that I find in almost all the children that I see."
"Yeah, we can run several more tests, but I'm telling you, it's not the ears."
"Allergies are very rare in children under 3."
"Her chronic runny nose is probably just a virus."

I wanted to punch that guy in the throat. I was devastated to find out her hearing is "fine." I was more devastated to have this doctor tell me that she is "fine." He was a dick and I ended up leaving the appointment crying. I am thankful that Eric came with me and was able to see that clearly, this guy was a dick as well. I was even more grateful when Eric spoke up and said, "Is there more we can do for her?"

He replied that it's definitely not the ears and to "find a new pediatrician."

Are you fucking kidding me? Luckily, last week I called our pediatrician to get a referral to an allergist. I have heard that sometimes allergies in small children can be pretty devastating to their development, particularly communicative skills. They seemed very hesitant (just like they were when I asked for a referral to an allergist because I thought James was allergic to eggs and guess what - MOM GUT WINS AGAIN), but it's understandable, because I am sure they don't want to make a referral for some crazy mom who is demanding it. So I finally heard back from them this morning, and luckily, we have had three kids in four years, so just with well-child checks alone, I have seen our pediatrician at least once every two months. So she knows me, and our family. We have a referral to an allergist and we also have a referral to see a general pediatrician downtown. We are just waiting to hear back from our original pediatrician about when those appointments are.

So all-in-all, a day that maybe deserves a glass of wine at... 2:15 p.m.

But like Christy, our daycare provider said to me, after we dropped Catherine back off: Keep fighting the good fight.

I guess that's all we can do at this point.