Hearing Test and More Fevers

Today I took James in to have his hearing tested. This is not because we are concerned about his hearing, far from it! His hearing is excellent. He needed his hearing tested as part of the process for speech therapy. We are not that concerned about his speech, but the doctors are. Various doctors and OT's keeping asking if we have seen a Speech Pathologist. We have been putting them off since the summer, feeling it is unnecessary. I will not deny that James' speech development is slower then normal. He currently has only 10-15 words in his vocabulary. But much of James' developmental skills/milestones have been delayed and we feel this is just another one that will come on it's own in due time. James has great comprehension skills; he understands things very well, he just has some trouble expressing himself, but we do not feel he is so far behind that it is a great concern.

So why the Speech Therapy then?? Mostly so that they will stop asking us if he has seen a Pathologist, and partly to get him into the system. We are told that it takes some time to get in for actual therapy if it is indeed needed. First you need to go through the "weeding-out" process. We will meet with a Speech Pathologist who will assess James and determine if he indeed needs therapy. They will also give us suggestions on how we can help him at this time, or what various programs we can take him to while we are waiting for more specific therapy, (like we don't have enough other ones to go to...) We figure it won't hurt to start the process; we can always take him out later if it's no longer necessary. We were also told that at this age it will be more of a training for us then for James, which might help us to figure out ways to encourage him to speak.

As for James' hearing test: it went well. I was actually intersted in going just to see how they test someone his age. All he had to do was sit on my lap and turn his head to the sounds that he heard. If he turned in the right direction there would be a toy lite up in a box for him to see, he would laugh at the toys. Of course he would be excited about seeing a lite up toy! So he started looking all around the room for them, but once he heard a sound he would usually turn to see where it was coming from. A few sounds he missed, but most he figured out. They said his hearing was in normal range, just as we figured. The one thing that did come out of the test is that when they tested his ears the tested indicated that there was fluid behind his ears. He will have to go back in a few months to see if this has drained out on it's own.

James' fevers have continued over the last couple days, up and down throughout the day and night. Even when his fever is lower his breathing continues to be rapid, usually sitting around 60bpm(normal for James is 36bpm), worse when his fever rises. Each day, usually early morning, we have one episode where we have debate if it is time to take him in, but each time we've waited it out an hour or two and it seems to settle again. We have heard him cough a few times, usually when he wakes up, but really no signs of a cold. I started him consistently on his puffers today, even though we have never seen any indication that they help him. What a amazing guy James is. He continues on throughout the day with little to no sign that he is unwell. He plays well, is active, and eats typical James style. He truly amazes us how he can keep going without even a sign of being extra tired and not even being cranky like he was at the beginning of the week. Yet we know that he's fighting something, and hope that he'll hold out until the week-end is over.