In May, Henry failed the hearing test at his Kindergarten screening. The test itself was actually quite comical. The school nurse and I were in the room with him and he wasn't raising his hands for the beeps even though the nurse and I could hear them through the headphones. It turns out that she had told him to raise his hands for "beeps" and he didn't think they sounded like beeps so he didn't raise his hand. Once we got it all cleared up with him that he shoud raise his hand for ANY noise he hears in the headphones we thought we would be all set but no dice. He failed in his left ear. So we headed off to his primary care doctor where he also failed for the left ear. The doctor said that he did have some fluid in his left ear which could be causing the problem so we should retest in a few weeks. So a couple weeks later the crew and I headed back to the doctor for a retest. It's always such a joy to bring three kids to the doctor. At that test he passed his left ear but failed his right. The doctor can't give a child a passing score until they pass both ears in the same test so we left with another fail. We were back at it a couple of weeks later for another test where once again he failed the right. So for those keeping track, that's two fails in the left ear and two fails in the right ear.
At that point his primary care doctor decided it would be best to send him off to an ENT for evaluation. I was so frustrated - not at the doctor, not at Henry - just at the situation. I really had no doubt that Henry's ears were fine. Failing the test is a total Henry thing to do. He is a dreamer - a head up in the clouds kind of kid. During one of the tests I heard him say to the nurse, "Oops, I keep forgetting to raise my hand!" That was on the third test when I was wrangling an unruly Daniel in the hallway and wouldn't have minded ripping my own ears off at that point.
But alas, alas, Henry and I headed off to see the ENT yesterday to have an evaluation and a full hearing test with an audiologist. Not surprisingly, you put that boy in a sound proof room with no distractions and high tech testing devices and he can hear everything. He heard every single noise and easily passed every part of the test. So there you have it - FIVE hearing tests later he got a passing score. Watch out Kindergarten - Henry's coming for you!