HOW HAD WE MISSED OUR SON’S IMPAIRMENT?

BY LEAH KATZ

I removed the note from nearly three-year-old Mayer’s briefcase and rolled my eyes. PTA conference for nursery boys. What would they discuss, table manners and nap-time obedience?

Indeed, it would take a while for us to appreciate that meeting.

“The teacher thinks Mayer doesn’t hear well,” my husband pronounced upon his return from the conference the following week.

He set his hat down on the table, then continued. “When the class transitions from one activity to another, he doesn’t move along with the rest of the class. The rebbi doesn’t believe he’s intentionally ignoring orders. It appears to him that Mayer doesn’t hear the announcement at all.”

I pulled out a chair and sat down heavily, abandoning the dish towel from my hands. Our son had a problem. This was serious. Surely, the wet dishes could wait.

Mayer, our eldest, had always been unusually obedient and calm. Since he was a baby, everything about him was slow and peaceful. He ate and slept nicely, played happily with toys on his own, and could sit on my lap or in the stroller for long stretches of time without becoming edgy. As a new mother, this was a blessing I could only fully appreciate when my next baby came along.

Now, my appreciation for Mayer’s compliance suddenly shifted. Was his conduct only a result of his being tuned out? Clueless? Had his laidback behavior been a concerning symptom we had missed all along?

I sighed. “What does he suggest we do?”

“Have his hearing tested. The rebbi had this with one of his own children too, and it actually turned out that the child’s oversized tonsils were the issue.”

Suddenly, the dots were connecting in my mind. It was a comment I always heard when a nurse or doctor looked into Mayer’s mouth during checkups and throat cultures.

Mayer has huge tonsils.

At our next visit to the pediatrician, I discussed the situation with him, and he agreed that there was no reason not to test Mayer’s hearing. With the slightest flutter in my gut, we made it a Chol Hamoed trip and headed to the nearby Audiology Center.

Mayer was barely three years old, and the test was lengthy and tiring. Despite my cheering him on, and the colorful toys being used as indicators of his hearing levels, we were both grouchy by the time the session was over. Next, we were taken to an exam room where a woman pronounced his hearing to be perfect. She then peered into both his ears and mouth and advised we check out his tonsils.

“There is currently fluid in both of his ears, and you mentioned that that’s a usual occurrence,” she added.

I nodded. Mayer had never suffered from ear infections. However, whenever a doctor peered into his ears, he always found fluid there. This was one of the few causes of irritability when he was a baby.

“Both his tonsils and adenoids are enlarged, as well. I would have an ENT examine them and decide if removing or shaving them is necessary. Inserting tubes in his ear may be helpful, too.”

I nodded again, and thanked her, promising to follow up with our doctor.

We left, grateful that our son’s hearing was fine, baruch Hashem, but wondering what the next step would bring.

With a referral from the pediatrician in hand, I dutifully made an appointment at the highly recommended ENT for the following month. This time, I took a slot during morning hours and accompanied Mayer myself. The office was close to our home, and I preferred to send my younger baby off to the babysitter and share the results with my husband later in the day.

In hindsight, the short-lived panic I was to endure there was destined for me alone; he would be spared the experience.

After completing the necessary paperwork, the receptionist explained that they’d be conducting another hearing test on-site, as they do prior to every examination. A large, ornate wooden train track set was set in the center of the waiting room, and my eyes repeatedly traced its paths, bridges, and tunnels while davening that the test wouldn’t be as exhausting as the previous one.

It wasn’t. Although a student evaluator introduced herself and joined the procedure, it went a lot faster and smoother than the first one. Mayer cooperated nicely, and my breathing began to slow down. Everything was going okay—until it wasn’t.

“According to the examination, your son does not hear all frequencies of sound,” the technician announced, bangles clanking noisily on her wrist. Mayer intently followed their dance as he held my hand, clearly aware of their sound.

“We’d suggest he wears hearing aids for the time being, at least during school hours. It’s really not something you should view as a big handicap. Why, the device is not more visible than eyeglasses. They will help optimize both his academic and social experience.”

With that, she snapped shut the file in her hand, and held a stapled stack of paper out to me.

“Take this with you to the doctor. You will continue discussing the options with him.”

I took the papers from her hand robotically and headed back to the waiting area. Thankfully, an acquaintance with whom I’d been schmoozing had already been called into a room, and I was left alone to absorb the shock.

I distinctly remember that an elderly woman stood at the front desk, holding her hearing aids in one hand, cane in the other. The device was so tiny, I noticed. Technology must have significantly advanced since the last time I’d taken a careful look at those I knew who wore them.

I looked on as my three-year-old, fresh peyos framing his face, followed the path of the train cars as they passed through the tunnel, and my eyes warmed. Hearing impaired? Why hadn’t the first test shown these results? With a life of its own, my mind started racing as I pictured the life trajectory of my impaired child.

Stop it, I reprimanded myself. Hearing aids are like eyeglasses, you just heard the woman say so herself. Simple issue, simple to solve. Many people have hearing impairments, why can’t your son be one of them?

I shook my head hard, coming back to the present. I flipped my phone open and checked the time. Should I call my husband during seder? No, I decided. The facts would remain the same in an hour from now. Why ruin the last “perfect” hour of his life?

During those few minutes, I distinctly remember thinking about the people in my life who suffered from hearing impairments. It was humbling to consider how I had neatly grouped them into the “they” category all these years. And equally humbling to suddenly realize the judgment they were subject to in social settings, especially shidduchim It hit me that they were perfectly bright, normal, functioning children and adults who—similar to me with my eyeglasses—simply used hearing aids to help them hear well.

When the nurse called our name, I was relieved to finally escape my thoughts. The doctor, for his part, was a smiling, wise-looking man, seemingly unaware that my life had just taken a nosedive. He explained to my son that a tiny camera would travel down his nose and snap photos of the inside of his throat. With some discomfort, which Mayer handled amazingly, it did just that, and before long, the doctor was back with the diagnosis.

“Huge tonsils, large adenoids, both of which cause the fluid in his ears not to drain adequately. This, in turn, clogs up the ears, and similar to when surrounded by a sound machine, often have the child tune out of their surroundings.” He swiveled his chair to face me before continuing. “I would recommend shaving both his tonsils and adenoids. And while we’re in the area already, I’d also insert tubes to ensure the fluid drains properly.”

We discussed the technical details of the hospitals he practices at and surgical procedures, after which he waved us to the door with instructions to schedule with the front desk receptionist. One foot out the door, it hit me like a blinding flash between my eyes; the hearing aids!

“Oh!” I turned back to face the doctor. “What about the hearing test results? The technician said we should get—”

He interrupted me with a dismissive wave of his hands at the sheaf of papers on his lap. “Never mind, disregard that. The technician obviously doesn’t know what she’s talking about; the results here don’t indicate any hearing issue.”

I dragged my second foot out of the room, letting the door swing shut.

I blinked, allowing the queasy feeling in my stomach to dissipate. Is this how suddenly the geulah would descend upon us? I walked back to the waiting area on unsteady feet, carrying renewed appreciation for the precious gift of hearing I had taken for granted.

July and August passed in a blur of sprinklers, sunshine, and a consultation with a highly recommended surgeon at Columbia Babies Hospital. This doctor agreed that Mayer’s tonsils and adenoids should be shaved, but he did not recommend inserting tubes. His reasoning was that once the tonsils shrank, the fluid in the ear would begin draining properly on its own.

As we waited for an available date for surgery, I began noticing various symptoms related to enlarged tonsils that I had always dismissed as personality. Perhaps because he was our oldest, Mayer’s deep snoring as he slept and difficulty waking up in the morning never concerned me. His constant display of extreme calm and obedience, to the extent that as Pesach approached, my older sister would laughingly remind me that when he was a bit over a year old, I’d cleaned my entire kitchen as he sat in the highchair with a pile of Cheerios and watched.

As the chill of fall set in, we finally scheduled the procedure for the end of February. Meanwhile, the new school year began, and Mayer moved up to the next grade. Again, as my oldest child, I enjoyed watching him play with his toys and age-appropriate games, good-naturedly protecting his creations from his out-to-destroy little brother.

When kindergarten PTA came around, we wondered whether his rebbi this year had also noticed his lack of “hearing.” We had decided not to discuss it with him before the meeting, allowing him to reach his own conclusions first so we’d get an unbiased second opinion.

This time, my husband came home with a completely different perspective. “The rebbi suggests that Mayer would benefit from play therapy, or perhaps occupational therapy. He doesn’t seem to interact with the other boys at all,” he said. “When the kids play with toys, for example, Mayer will either build something on his own, or hand over the pile of Lego. He doesn’t have the skills to participate in a partner or group activity.”

Knowing this rebbi as a veteran educator, I took his opinion very seriously and began making inquiries about evaluations, modalities, and therapists in my area. Interestingly, when I mentioned my concerns to a neighbor whose daughter had had the procedure done to shave her tonsils not long before, we decided to put this conversation on hold until after Mayer’s surgery. This woman told me that her daughter, too, had social issues, and they simply resolved on their own after the procedure.

My husband let the teacher know that we were going to revisit his suggestion after Purim, when Mayer would be post-surgery and my sister’s chasunah had passed.

February came sooner than expected, and with it the date of the surgery. We hoped and davened that Mayer remain cough, cold, and sneeze free so the surgery could proceed as planned. Baruch Hashem, turning a blind eye to a slight cough, he did.

At the crack of dawn on a blustery Wednesday, we headed to the hospital. Thankfully, the pre-op went