Kate and I visit the ENT every three months. He likes to keep up with whatever is going on in her little ears. Usually the visit consists of getting a ton of wax pulled out of her ears, and then he says she looks good, and we go home.
Her last set of tubes was from August 2010, and one of them had fallen out almost immediately, while the other one lasted until this past spring. He had pulled one of them out, but the other one is still laying in there. He also mentioned that one of them (the right? Why can't I remember this stuff better?) still had a hole from where the tube was. It hasn't healed like it should have.
So what now? Well, because of her cleft palate, her Eustachian tubes don't work like they are supposed to. As she gets bigger, they will hopefully get stronger and do their job, but until then we have to keep an eye on her ears for ear infections which could also lead to more hearing loss. The plan is to let the hole in her ear act as a "tube" to drain fluid from that ear. Then we will watch the other ear (left?) to see if she her Eustachian tubes are working properly and if she gets more infections. It will act as a gauge to tell us when she is big enough to not worry about tubes any more. At that point she will then have to have the hole repaired.
At this point it isn't a huge deal. We just watch it and see what happens. Most people aren't even aware that she has ear issues, especially since it doesn't affect her on a daily basis. We are very thankful that she recovered so much of her hearing when she had that first set of tubes put in. Later this week, she has an appointment at the cleft clinic, where we will see the plastic surgeon and the audiologist. We expect that appointment to go well too.
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