Yesterday didn’t go very well at all — not that we’ve gotten bad news. In fact, we got only a tiny bit more info out of our medical misadventure, but not the mother load of hearing loss-related knowledge we expected, hoped for.
We had rules to follow: Withholding food all day in preparation for the sedation was not well received, and withholding those precious naps … what a nightmare!!
Rule # 1: Don’t let the baby eat after 9 am [diversionary tactics -- good thing we've gotten riveting new books from our friends in Germany (Adam, Steffi and Elliot) and Baltimore (Elizabeth -- and oh my god, those boots!) to distract the wee one!]
Rule # 2: Don’t let the baby fall asleep! [diversionary tactics -- songs, flopping the feet (usually a crowd-pleaser), jostling the baby incessantly, cool water splashed on the face -- even the precious calculator, with which she cuddles, came out for the occasion]
That did not go over well — especially when it came to the hour-long car ride into the Big City. But we then had many more hours of tossing the baby to come.
A planned procedure to remove fluid from Li-Li’s left ear (”unrelated to her hearing issue” or “likely related to her hearing issue” depending upon whether we listen to the ENT doctor or the audiologist) was unplanned. The consultation with our new doctor (Dr. Roberson) went very well — we really like him, Anna-Li thinks he’s swell, and he seems very straightforward right from the outset: “Frankly, given these findings, I’d be very surprised if we find that she has any hearing”. And then more waiting, and Li-Li grew very, very tired.
The interminable wait: don’t let the baby sleep!
Now we sleep!
But then we tried to sedate our generally placid, serene, and exhausted baby. This will be a snap, we thought, and foolishly said aloud. Twice over they tried to put her to sleep (”1 in 10,000 babies get wired, instead of conking out”) - and guess what? We have a 1 in 10,000 baby who climbs the walls when hit with enough sedation to put down a calf (760 mg chloral hydrate) — literally, she actually tried to scale the wall to escape the hospital bed. I’ve never seen my baby bounce off the walls the way she did while we all desperately tried to put her to sleep.
So after hours of trying to knock her out, two more canceled tests, and then another hour monitored by a nurse to ensure she was OK to be released, we left the hospital with our now wired and drunken little one careening from wall to wall, and five minutes later, she was out cold in her car seat.
Why don’t they set up car seat simulations in hospitals instead of sedating the wee ones?
Next steps:
We are rescheduling the same set of tests — this time under general anesthesia in the operating room.
