eyes and ears update

I realized tonight that I had neglected to mention some fabulous CHEO appointments Caelan had last week.

Opthamology, not an appointment I would have ever thought to call 'fabulous', primarily because you always end up being there forever and a day.  In fact, I'm told this visit was no different.  We had what we believed to be one of the very first appointments of the day (8:15am) and still had to wait an hour before being seen!  I digress though; there is good news.  I promise. 

Okay.  In previous appointments Caelan has been unable to communicate what if anything he could see.  However, with Caelan's increased vocabulary through sign language and his growing cognitive ability this was the first first time we were able to get an actual understanding of his vision and it's good news!  Before I get ahead of myself his right eye is still not considered functional.  When they covered his left eye he just wouldn't use or look with his right.  Instead, he would try to move and look around using his left eye, but we already knew that he had limited if any vision in that right eye so this didn't surprise us.  The testing involved four symbols that were presented on a monitor at the other side of the room (similar to when you go for a regular eye exam but these are simple pictures instead of letters).  Caelan was given a card that had all four symbols on it and was asked which one he could see on the monitor (only one appeared at a time).  He did great and was able to identify them all!  Then the symbols got smaller and he identified them again, and this was repeated several times!!  Everyone was really happy with the results.

Caelan's other appointment was with audiology.  Audiology usually goes well as long as nobody tries to touch or look into Caelan's ears.  Believe it or not you can still have a rather successful appointment just by sitting in an room set up to make noises on either side and monitoring his reactions.  Caelan is growing up though and we've been doing that type of testing for quite some time and basically, he's on to it.  He knows there are noises and he knows there will be a bear or a bunny in a box over to one side or the other and it will be playing an instrument and yaddy, yaddy, yah,... whatever, who cares!  So, it was time to move on to the bigger boy testing.  That's where the problem lies because the big boy test involves a piece similar to an earphone that has to be in his ear.  oh boy...  Of course there was some rebellion and he fought while they tried to put it in his ear (they only tested the good one - the right one) but once it was in and he was distracted he did really well!  It was like he forgot all about the thing in his ear, he didn't fuss about it at all and didn't try to pull it out or anything either.  The results were the same and that's good news too!