Kaelen - Aus Hearing checkup May 2009

Thurs 7th May 2009 - today was Kaelen's repeat Aus Hearing checkup, nearly 2 months after the original appointment! He had a checkup scheduled for 11th March, but testing that day was pretty inconclusive - he didn't respond as well to the testing as we'd hoped, and he was only just old enough for VROA's (Puppet test) anyway, so we had to reschedule. Welcome to government departments, the next available appointment was today, 7th May, nearly 2 months later!

Kaelen was amazing today. He's been shuffling his morning sleep a bit later recently, closer to or a bit after 10am, and this morning's appointment was 9:15am. I was hoping he might sleep in a bit this morning and therefore be in good condition and able to be awake and happy at least til 10am. When i heard him awake at 6:30am, i didn't know what was going to happen - but there was nothing i could do about it then.

We began testing soon after 9:15am; did the Left ear...did the Right ear...did Bone Conduction - and by then it was 10:15am! Kaelen was still happy and responding well, so we actually got a full set of results which, according to the senior audiologist, would normally take 2 sessions to get from a 10-month-old baby. By the time the hearing aids were adjusted and re-fitted, it was after 10:30, and Kaelen still hadn't dissolved yet. Mind you, i put him down to sleep right away, and he was out to it by 10:45am :-)

So - yes, there's still a hearing loss, but the good news is that nothing appears to have changed since his very first tests at the Mater in 2008! Hooray!!! Stable hearing levels!!

We also took the time to put Jarrah's & Kaelen's audiograms side-by-side for a comparison, just for curiosity's sake really. Interestingly, they are about the same shape, but Jarrah's loss is just slightly worse than Kaelen's. Their right ears both have a fairly flat loss, between 50-70db across the 5 tested frequencies (250Hz, 500Hz, 1kHz, 2kHz, 4kHz); their left ears have a sloping loss, starting between 50-70db across the lower 3 frequencies and sloping up to 80-90db across the higher 2 frequencies. We haven't done any genetic testing as yet, but now seeing these audiograms side-by-side, i wouldn't be at all surprised if something shows up when the time comes...

Oh, and Kaelen's latest favourite game is Peek-a-boo...when he's particularly enjoying it, he says "Bvvv!"...meaning "Boo", of course, but it's just great that he's hearing and beginning to use some simple words/sounds. May it continue!