Routine Visit, or Not.

I took my son to the ENT today for a routine check up following his disastrous October ear drum rupture. This was a routine follow up visit. Routine suggests that everything would be fine, we were just checking to see that it was all healed up nice and pretty. It went a little like this:

Friendly banter with really cool Dr. Really Cool Dr looks into G's right ear, give G the thumbs up and more banter. RCDr looks in G's left ear. RCDr purses his lips.

RCDr sits back on his rolling stool, repositions his otoscope, repositions G's ear and looks again. And sits back again.

And then he calmly turns to me, and says, "After 60 days, a child this age has less than a 5% chance of recovery without surgery. So, here's my surgical scheduler's phone number."

Me, a little blown back, "What? You mean, after you look at him again in 30 days, right?"

RCDr, "Well, we could wait. Since it's been only about 45 days since the known on set, but, just so you know, he can't hear right now. So...." awkward pause while he watches me get up to speed. "I don't think we should wait. Unless he's doing 'just great' in school. Is he???... doing great???... in... school?" This is all sort of drawn out, in a very amusing and comic way, and I then realized, wait, he's being serious and wants to know.

"Um. Not 'great', but... well. No, not the best, but it could be that he's just being a boy."

RCDr., "Or, we could just fix his hearing."

Me, "or that. SO."

RCDr. "Yup. Call my scheduler. And you need to call her tomorrow. Morning. Because, did I mention, he can't hear?"

Here we were, one minute having an amusing kid centered conversation about 3 year olds, bubbles, bad jokes, and 2nd grade, and then the next, we were calmly discussing the anesthesia risks for 7 year olds, surgery, and recovery time.

So, on this blog page we have established that my Husband freaks out over a piece of microscopic pencil lead in the skin. I'll give you two guesses as to how He took the news. What? You don't need "two" guesses?