On ears and buns

This post will be an update of sorts. If you've been following along, you'll know that my car recently tried to kill me by setting the butt warmer on fire while I was sitting on it.

You'll also perhaps remember the one where I talked about my fears that my oldest son is deaf as a post.

Today, there was a small bit of forward movement on both fronts.

My car, she did indeed catch on fire. The service manager at the dealership said "yeah, it's fried." I said "so it burned up?" and he said "Oh, yeah. Torched. It's just an empty circuit now, though, so it's safe."

Hmmm. Safe. Interesting choice of words, as were "fried" and "torched." I feel so much better. New parts shall be installed in a fortnight, however long that is.

On to the bigger issue at hand, my deaf son. He is, indeed, temporarily deaf. If you were to stick both fingers in your ears, he would hear 20% less than that, according to the doctors who saw him today. His latest ear infection left him with pus behind his eardrum. Not "fluid," per se, but thick pus. Most people's bodies re-absorb fluid behind the eardrum, but sadly my son's is not doing that and hence the hearing loss.

I got to sit with him in the special room where they conduct hearing tests, and there was a point during the test when I had to stop myself from weeping. I could hear the lady from the control booth saying things like "say hotdog," and Cooper would say "popcorn." Or she would give him a command and he'd just stare blankly because he couldn't hear her. I could hear her, and I was in a soundproof room.

The good news is it's not permanent! His nerves that control permanent hearing are fine, it's everything in between that's messed up right now. We have to wait until February to see if the issue resolves itself (doc thinks it won't), and then he can have new tubes and his adenoids out at the same time.

The best part about all of it is I get to continue TALKING REALLY SLOW AND REALLY LOUD WITH HIM, and tapping him on the shoulder before even attempting to tell him anything, or gesturing with hand signals if I'm too far away to tap, for at least another six weeks. Yay!

So there. Thank you for your concern regarding both matters, and hopefully sometime in the spring both my son and my car will be fixed for good.

- H