Kaelen - has hearing aids!

Tues 30th Sept - Kaelen turns 3 months old tomorrow, and today was his hearing aid fitting appointment. Such a miracle that technology now allows a 3-month-old hearing-impaired child full access to sound...20 years ago nobody would probably have known the 3-month-old child was hearing-impaired at that age! The molds look so tiny compared to Jarrah's...i guess his ears are quite a bit smaller, 2 years makes such a difference! The units are the same colour, so i've written their first initial on each one so i can tell them apart.

Kaelen responded quite well then they were first switched on. There's a lot of messing about in the appointment before we get to the 'switching on' bit, mostly setting up the units, checking that the molds fit properly, checking that the tubing (that joins the mold to the unit, that pipes the sound into the ear) is sitting correctly so the hearing aids stay on properly, and then cutting that tubing to the correct length, talking through the safety aspects of using hearing aids with children, talking through the various functions of the hearing aids (some of which are disabled for children)...all the information, legal & procedural stuff. Then, there is the moment of truth - the aid is inserted and the battery clipped in. Pause, while the hearing aid powers up. Sound!

Kaelen was having a feed at the time his first aid was switched on, so we could see his face quite well. He didn't seem stressed about it at all, although his eyes definitely got wider :-) "Wow, the world sound like *this*?" The second one was not as dramatic, probably because it just complimented the first one, but there was definitely a reaction, and not a bad one, which is what we like to see. Then they do some quick checks with loud noise-makers to make sure he's not uncomfortable with those loud sounds, and if it's all good then that's it - we're done!

Today was not quite as emotional for me as i thought it was going to be...perhaps i processed a lot of that emotion during these last 2 weeks, knowing it was coming. Or perhaps this is just a lull, and it'll all hit me again tomorrow morning when i have to put 4 hearings aids into 2 children, not just 2 into 1...i don't know, but i must confess that i was fearful that i would cry all over the audiologists. Fortunately, that didn't eventuate, i was calm, cool & collected the whole day. Let's see what tomorrow brings...

I'm really hoping that getting hearing aids this early will mean that Kaelen will develop speech reasonably normally. It's hard to tell what's going to happen, and we don't know if there are any distortions along with the volume loss, so all we can do for know is hope, pray, and do our best to give him the best possible chance. Hopefully his brain will switch on to listening in these early months and it won't be the effort for him that it is for Jarrah.

For reference, i thought i'd upload this Frequency comparison chart. It gives a bit of an idea of what sounds fall in what ranges (both frequency & volume), both speech sounds and other environmental sounds, and therefore what sounds should be accessible by people with certain amounts of loss. This chart makes no sense for Jarrah, he constantly makes sounds that are allegedly outside his hearing range, so we just nod and keep going, but i include it anyway as i find it an interesting guide.

Next appointment: Tues 14th October - hearing aid follow-up appt for Kaelen

Kaelen - Australian Hearing appt

Wed 17th Sept was Kaelen's initial appointment with Australian Hearing. At this initial appointment the usual procedure is to perform a few tests to confirm the results sent through from the Mater and decide on a course of action (usually the recommendation of hearing aids). For Kaelen this was pretty much a foregone conclusion so the testing was routine, but at least it showed the same kinds of results to the Mater, so again, his hearing appears to be stable - which is a nice change!

Nana accompanied us to this appointment, which was nice - good for her to see what happens, and handy to have someone to hold Kaelen when i needed to sign papers or do other things. :-) I didn't realise that Kaelen needed to be asleep for the testing though, so we were there at a time when he was fairly awake after a feed. Fortunately, he's a sleep-anywhere kid, and by the time they were wanting to begin the testing it was getting close to his sleep-time anyway, so they set us up in the sound booth (all testing is done in sound-proof rooms so prevent extraneous noise from interfering) and left us for 10mins to get him to sleep. He was a bit wiggly, both tired-wiggly & tummy-wiggly so after a few mins i put him over my knee to ease the tummy pains...and he was soon fast asleep :-) Lucky i never had to do this infant test with Jarrah, there is *no way* he would have done that...

The testing showed a 50-60db hearing loss, which is exactly what we expected, so then it was on to choosing colours for his behind-the-ear unit and making impressions of his ears for the molds. I had wondered about getting a different colour unit to Jarrah so i could tell them apart easily, but in the end i just went with the skin-colour again, and we'll put stickers or nail-polish or something on them to tell them apart (might even put their initial on the unit so that Jarrah can tell which is his and which is Kaelen's too...just thought of that!). Impressions are taken by squirting a nice cold goo into the ear canal and around the outer ear which then needs to be left to set for about 2minutes - an eternity to a small child! - so that wasn't entirely pleasant, but it's got to be done. Oh, and because Kaelen's so much smaller than Jarrah was at this point, we'll be needing to get new molds as he grows, which will probably be a much more regular event :-s Great...

So, back to Australian Hearing on Tues 30th Sept for hearing aid fitting, then a follow-up appointment on Tues 14th Oct to check and make sure they're doing ok. On 1st Oct Kaelen turns 3 months old, so he'll have good access to sound a lot earlier than Jarrah did - hopefully this will mean we can avoid some of the speech delays and discipline issues we've had with Jarrah along the way...although i think it will be more difficult seeing hearing aids on my baby's ears this time, he's so little...

A side-note, humourous but totally irrelevant - i got my wedding rings re-sized last week, as i hadn't been able to wear them since Jan 2006 while i was pregnant with Jarrah. After he was born i took a while to lose all the baby weight, but even when i had i found that my knuckles had spread a bit and i still couldn't get my rings on! Since we were thinking of having another baby fairly soon i didn't bother about getting them re-sized at the time, but this time i thought i would since i'm not carrying much extra weight. They were a size J, and they only needed to be made one size bigger, up to a size K - who would have thought that my kids would be imprinted in my ring sizes?!? :-)

Next appt: Tues 30th Sept 10:30am Australian Hearing - Kaelen's hearing aid fitting

ENT - double trouble :-)

Well, no trouble actually - thankfully!!

Tues 9th Sept was the infamous double ENT appointment, both boys to be checked out. Dr checked Jarrah's grommets - all good...hooray!! The left side had some discharge going on at the time of surgery, but it was all cleared up now and looking fine. I reported Jarrah's increased responses as expected, and fortunately Jarrah was much more talkative during today's appointment than he's been during any previous ENT appt's, so Dr got a much more accurate picture of what he's doing...which is good. We have still been referred to the Mater Cochlear Implant team, just waiting to hear from them.

Kaelen was asleep at the appointment time (surprise, surprise! He sleeps anywhere, almost anytime...), so Dr was loathed to wake him to have a look in his ears, but he was due for a feed anyway so i said, "Go ahead! If you don't wake him, i will :-)" Apparently Kaelen has reasonably large ear canals, and nothing appeared to be amiss so far. There's nothing that can really be done surgically at this stage, he's far too little, so it's a matter of wait-and-see, get hearing aids from Aus Hearing (they'll be able to compensate for the conductive loss anyway), and let's check him again in 3-4 months time.

So, nothing major to report really...which in some ways is a good thing! The only disappointment of the day was that our friends who were going to accompany us into town and picnic with us afterwards were unable to make it due to late illness...would have been nice for the kids to have a run together, but nevermind, maybe next time.

Next appt: Wed 17th Sept 8:15am - Kaelen @ Australian Hearing

It's amazing what deaf kids can do...

Jarrah was hearing exceptionally well today. He wore both hearing aids yesterday, but today he seemed to be doing well without them so we got a bit lazy and didn't put them in...and he still said new words that we hadn't heard before, like "hot", and "squirrel", and "weasel". With no hearing aids. And they actually sounded something like the word. Go figure.

The Aus Hearing audiologists were amazed some time ago, when we discussed what sort of toys Jarrah enjoys, that he loves musical instruments. Considering his test results, they were surprised he was getting any benefit from them at all, but he truly loves banging on the piano 

(singing along, of course!), or pretending to play a violin with two pencils (correct hands most of the time), or drumming with two pencils (Mummy's favourite...not!), or whacking his toy glockenspiel. He sings many different songs, often spontaneously, and has recently fallen in love with the stereo - it's often the first thing he turns on in the morning (except when Mummy & Daddy object at 6am!!), and then sits right in front of it and listens intently for a few minutes before finding something else to do.

For his 2nd birthday, we bought him a little ukulele, cos he loves watching me play guitar and always wants a turn. Yesterday I got out my violin (for the first time in quite a while :-s) and so he went and got his uke to play along :-) Today, just before dinner, Daddy and the two boys were playing downstairs and I went down to tell them dinner was ready, just in time to see Jarrah bringing his uke out to where Daddy & Kaelen were. It was clear he wanted to play, so i got him to sit down and he proceeded to serenade Kaelen, strumming most gently and singing away...

Then, he decided it was Kaelen's turn to play the uke...

Very cute, what a considerate boy we have! And all this still without hearing aids!

It's amazing what deaf kids can do...

Kaelen's first speech "lesson"

What do you do with a nearly-9wk-old baby in a speech "lesson"?

Good question, actually. Think of it not so much as a lesson for the baby, but a lesson for Mum. Children with hearing losses often don't naturally tune in to environmental sounds the way hearing kids do, so the first thing they usually need is to be taught to listen. That seems very strange to those of us with normal hearing, we just assume that everyone can listen - as i sit here typing i notice that Kaelen has stopped crying and is hopefully going to sleep, i can hear various birds outside, and the occasional passing truck on the main road, and although none of these sounds are in my immediate listening space i still notice that they're there. Hearing impaired children may not hear those detailed sounds that i hear, and therefore what they do hear becomes just a blur of noise - at least, that's my interpretation. Teaching them to listen involves helping them to acknowledge when they do hear something, encouraging them to notice what they hear, and respond to it in some way.

So today was about making sounds and seeing Kaelen's response when he did hear something. It was interesting actually, very educational for me, it was good to see him respond to sound in that controlled environment because now i know what to look for at home to show that he's heard something - his eyes widen, or he frowns, or smiles, or looks to me for confirmation / assurance. He's definitely hearing things, so we can begin to use the "learning to listen" sounds with various objects to help him tune in to these things - animal sounds, transport sounds (cars, planes, trains, etc.) - and of course i have an expert helper in Jarrah, who i'm sure will be more than happy to make lots of these sounds for Kaelen! :-)

Amazingly, Kaelen was awake for the whole session (which is only short at this stage but will get longer as he gets older), and only started to get tired right at the end. He liked the cow, especially when i wiggled it quickly, that drew some smiles! We actually got little chuckles at home on Sunday which was very cute, so he's clearly trying to communicate, and responding to us.

Yet to hear from Australian Hearing, but i'm sure they'll get to us in the fullness of time...