The journey thus far... - part 3

The other excitement for December 2007 was Jarrah's first CT scan. Because there was still a hearing loss apparent after the grommets, our ENT recommended we have a CT scan of Jarrah's temporal bones done (the tiny bones in the middle ear and the cochlear structure), just to make sure they were properly formed, to check for any abnormalities. This was performed under general anaesthetic (GA), yet another unpleasant experience in child sedation, except this time the unpleasant-ness is at the beginning rather than the end. They wake up very confused and feeling a little like they've been on a roller coaster, so it takes them a little while to calm down and they usually fall asleep fairly soon after that. Jarrah had already had a GA for his grommets, so we were confident that there should be no side effects, but this time they had also put a drip in his hand "just in case" they needed it. I'm fairly sure this was the source of the discomfort and panic on his part, as he kept trying to pull it out amidst the screaming, and calmed down considerably once it was removed.

The CT scan revealed "normal morphology", which basically means that everything looks fine. In some ways I had been wishing that there was something unusual, as that would have given us a potential cause for this whole thing, and perhaps an avenue of treatment in the form of corrective surgery later on. "Normal morphology" told us nothing really, and deepened the mystery, and somewhat heightened the frustration.

10 days after receiving our hearing aids from Aus Hearing, we had to go back to double-check the hearing levels that had been observed at our first visit and adjust the hearing aids levels if necessary. More weirdness occurred - it seemed that in the 4 weeks since our first Aus Hearing visit, Jarrah's levels had changed dramatically for the worse. It was decided to repeat the test after New Year, just to prove that the results were accurate before we went turning up the hearing aids as far as the results seemed to indicate they needed to be. It was between these two tests that Jarrah also had his first ear infection, an ominous sign of things to come.

We repeated the VROA at Aus Hearing in early January 2008, and the results were the same as late December 2007, so it would appear that Jarrah's hearing had in fact deteriorated in the month between our first visit to Aus Hearing and the third visit to check on the hearing aids. 

During a VROA test, sounds of various frequencies/pitches (high/low) are played at specific levels (volumes) while the child plays with a toy in front of them. The 'game' is that they turn towards the sound when they hear it and are rewarded with a lit-up dancing toy of some sort (Dorothy the Dinosaur, a police car, Pooh ear, etc.). This way the audiologists can chart how well a child hears at different frequencies, which impacts how well they detect speech sounds. At Jarrah's pre-December 2007 VROA's, he had detected all frequencies at 60-70db, the level of normal to slightly loud conversation. At the late December VROA, he had not responded to the higher frequencies (2kHz & 4kHz) until about 90db with his left ear, which is the level of a severe to profound hearing loss. This was quite a shock, since not long before he had returned results of 50db in both ears at his post-grommet ABR.

Since there were two sets of results the same, it was decided to adjust his left hearing aid to the new level - how it squealed now! I think it probably took me longer to adjust to that than it did for Jarrah to adjust to the new level. He didn't seem disturbed by it or unhappy about it - but then he's such a visual boy that perhaps he just ignored it...