Lucas's ear looks really good right now, except for that little spot. We did not see Lucas's ENT or anyone else from the office on Tuesday, and I was okay with that. We will follow up in a few weeks.
As for his other appointments at CHOP... well, Lucas was very 3. He was pretty cooperative, but rather distracted in the booth, and he was only testing at 35-45 dB with his new ear. Mapping was another issue. He was not happy with having his ears attached and not turned on, and just wearing the new ear alone to be mapped. He still has the same program for his old ear as he's had for at about 6 months now, but he has a new map for his left ear, to give him some more access to quieter sounds. Somehow we managed that.
Then we were off for his hearing evaluation with speech (to measure his progress with his new ear). Surprisingly (because of how he acted for audio), he performed pretty well. She was well planned and quick with her activities. He's able to process more right now than he did at 2 months post-activation, so we're happy to see progress. He had a little trouble with single-syllable words with either the same first or last sound. Those discriminations are still emerging. We concluded that he just needs to gain more confidence, and we should see lots more progress at 6 months post-activation in June.
For now, we'll continue to practice with his new ear alone. Tonight we were playing hearing games, and he asked me to take my old ear off... so I played along and pretended to hand it to him. He proceeded to cover his mouth and ask me to pick up the zebra. It was super cute. He gets it, in his own 3-year-old way.
Now we just wait for his ear to heal and to meet with his surgeon again. Still praying for no surgery!