She took his hand. Yep, this was going to be the best one yet.
“Jon, I think Abraham has a hearing problem.”
Jon heard her words, but it took his mind a few seconds to process them. At first he thought he was the one with a hearing problem.
“I think he’s losing his hearing.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he said, remembering with acute clarity that she’d asked him the week before about Abe’s hearing test. They’d been at the museum. Watching Abe interact happily with the other kids. “He was tested over the summer.”
“I know.” Nodding, Lillie squeezed his hand. He was glad she held on. And wanted to be free, too. “That’s why I’ve been second-guessing myself. But I’ve been watching him all week, and today I spent a lot of time looking at case studies of two-year-olds with hearing loss and they describe Abe’s behavior to a T.”
“Behavior? What behavior?” Whatever their problem might be, he’d deal with it. He didn’t think, for one second that it had anything to do with his son’s ability to hear.
“The tantrums, for one.”
“They’re virtually gone,” he quickly pointed out. “A couple of mini tantrums is all we had this week and they were over almost as soon as they started.”
“Because we’re tending to the symptoms and, by doing so, putting a bandage on the problem.”
“What symptoms?” He was with her all the way. Just had to hear her facts so he could help her see where she erred on this one.
“I think I was wrong about Abe’s aversion to crowds.”
See, she got things wrong. Crowds. Hearing. It happened. No big deal.
“Or rather, I wasn’t wrong. He does have problems in crowds, but not for the reason I thought.”
Uh-huh.
“Crowds were a problem because they create confusion, because he can’t hear what’s going on, and he gets scared. It’s the fear that causes the tantrum.”
It was a good theory, but it didn’t apply. “He hears fine, Lil. He didn’t pick up a gazillion new words in just a few weeks by reading lips.” He kept his tone gentle. He wasn’t upset with her. He knew she just wanted to help.
“I agree, he hears. For now. But I think something’s going on in his ear canal. He’s losing his hearing.”
The worry in her eyes wrenched his heart. He wanted to hug her. “He just had his hearing checked,” he reminded her. “They looked in his ear canals.”
“And that’s why I think something’s going on. He shouldn’t be exhibiting so many signs of hearing loss this quickly unless something changed in the few months between summer and now.”
“What signs is he exhibiting?” Tantrums? He’d
asked his doctor about them. A medical professional. The pediatrician hadn’t mentioned anything about hearing loss attributing to tantrums.
“Visual cues,” she said. “Things a developmental specialist would look for.”
Giving her the benefit of the doubt because he trusted her overall, he asked, “What visual cues?”
“Last week at the museum, he held up his hand to tell another child to stop, rather than saying the word.”
“One hand gesture is a sign of hearing loss?”
“He did it four times. With different kids.”
“He doesn’t know the word stop yet.”
“He knows numbers. He can count to three.”
“I know,” Jon grinned. “Pretty amazing, isn’t it?” Bonnie had given him the good news on Thursday afternoon—Abe had only been with the three-year-olds since Monday and already he’d been picking up new things.