Here we go again...

The night after Kaelen's first hearing screen, they repeated it as is standard practice. His result was Refer this time too, which by then didn't surprise me at all, but was still disappointing. This meant more in-depth testing at Mater Audiology, sometime in the following 2 weeks. That was a bit different for us - because Jarrah was born at the Mater hospital we were able to go straight to Audiology the same day as his 2nd screen. Kaelen was not born at the Mater, so had to be referred by the hospital and then Mater were to contact us to arrange an appointment. Consequently, this time we left hospital knowing there was probably a problem but with no idea of the scale, and waiting on the phone to have a chance to find out.

This is the one thing i don't like about the Healthy Hearing programme. It's great that children who need help get picked up really early so that they can get the help they need, etc. etc., but it really puts a downer on having a new baby. You barely get a few days to enjoy them before you get this news, and it really rains on your parade. I know, they've got to do the screening while the babies are still in hospital, cos if they don't do it then it's unlikely to actually get done...but if there was any other way, if there was any option which allowed new mums to enjoy their little ones for just a little longer before getting this news, i'd vote for that. Now, i know that the vast majority of the population don't actually get bad news, so for most people it wouldn't really matter...but it's a burden on parents who do get bad news, no sooner do you have this new life than you've got something to worry about. Great, thanks. Of course, this is not the programme's fault, and truth be told, without Healthy Hearing Jarrah would probably still not be saying anything except "ah", and we'd be wondering why we had such a stubborn, willful, rude child who didn't listen to a single thing we said...but i just wish there was some way i could have enjoyed my babies for a little longer before sadness entered their lives. I guess it was grace that i was given 2 days with Kaelen, where i only had 1 day with Jarrah...

Our Mater Audiology appointment was set up for Thurs 17th July. Fortunately Kaelen is a sleep-anywhere baby, so he settled really well for the test (they need to be asleep for the testing), and even after he woke for a feed in the middle of it, settled again immediately. Unfortunately, the results did not look good as they started coming in. As this was initial testing they were just using a generic 'click' sound, not specific frequencies, but that gives enough information for a start. His right ear returned 60db (about the level of normal conversation) and his left ear returned 80db (significantly louder than normal conversation), although they were fairly sure there was a conductive component to the left ear, so potentially some fluid in the middle ear or something like that. They also did some bone conduction tests, which bypass the middle ear altogether (and therefore any fluid that may be hindering transmission of sound through there) and test what the inner ear (the cochlear & nerves) is actually able to do. The right ear levels were within the margin of error of the standard air conduction tests they did at first, but the left ear levels were significantly better than the air conduction tests, further hinting at a conductive component to the loss.

Audiologists never seem to like to give a final result too quickly. They always want to give the babies more time to grow and drain, or another chance - which is wonderful, but it can string the process out a bit. It seems fairly clear to me from these test results that we're dealing with a loss not unlike Jarrah's, but they want to test again in 4-6wks to confirm these results. I guess we're not losing too much time by waiting another 4wks or so, but this time i won't be letting it string out as long as Jarrah...nor, i think, will they.