I'm Back!

It's been a while, time has gotten away from me again. Where do I begin? I will start with his medical issues since that is what has taken up some time. He needs procedures and biopsies for his reflux, which we knew, but I just found out he has lost more hearing in his right ear and a little in his left. Our two options are surgery to try to open his ear up a bit and increase his hearing, or a hearing aid. Oh man did I cry when I heard that one - a hearing aid, on a child with Down Syndrome, could the stigma get any worse? As if he isn't presented with enough challenges throughout life. He has had trouble with his ears since he was very young, and a lot of the hearing loss is due to complications from past ear surgeries, infections, contracting MRSA, etc., so we run the risk of that happening again with another ear surgery, but I am tempted to go that route first as I don't think he will tolerate the hearing aid. For those of you who know Alex, can't you see him try to feed the $5000 hearing aid to the dog? And his eyes are next - my heart stopped the other day when we were in the kitchen and he asked which friend was standing at the table -" Who is that mom, Julia?" I said no thinking he was joking and he said," is it Claudia?", and I said, "Alex, seriously, who is that? Can't you see that far?" "No mom, I can't." Then I stopped breathing for a minute. A couple days later his teacher told me he was struggling to see when reading his books too. Another trip to one, two, or three eye doctors depending what they find. I am hoping it will be solved with a simple pair of glasses (not that getting him to wear them will be simple) instead of another eye surgery. He is only 10, it doesn't seem fair.