A new type of marathon...

I've learned something over the years. Always allow about an hour more for Aus Hearing appointments than the diary says you'll need. Sometimes I still forget, but these appointments reminded me of this truth.

Mon 29th Oct was a follow-up for Kaelen (Mr4) after having slightly blocked ears back in August. Afternoon appointments are a bit of a nuisance now because I have the 3pm school pick-up to work around, so a 3pm appointment really means have lunch at 11:30, get Mr4 & Miss2 into bed by 12, get them up at about 2 or shortly after so we can arrive at school by 2:30, sign Mr6 out and still get to our appt close to 3pm. Who knew a simple hearing test appointment required so much planning?!? Anyway, his results were great - he's never fluctuated since the day he was born - so that was the easy bit.

It's a few months ago now so some of the details are a bit fuzzy, but I think we did impressions for new moulds for Jarrah while we were there, and I think I had a question about Jarrah's FM not working properly or something...whatever it was, it necessitated Jarrah's hearing aids having some attention also, which meant extra time and waiting around. Not too bad, although a little longer than I'd expected, and I had left the roast in the oven at home cos I had expected to be home by about 4:30-5pm. One thing led to another, there were some technical difficulties, and finally i think at about 4:45-5pm(!!) Jarrah's hearing aids were brought out finished; I went to put them in and discovered that they simply didn't work.

At all.

Not very useful for a schoolboy! Fortunately i had checked them immediately in the waiting room, so I called the audiologist back again, who was most apologetic, and we proceeded to wait. Again.

Eventually the audiologist returned, saying she couldn't make them work either, she'd have to get the technician to have a look at them and determine whether it was the software on her computer or the hearing aids themselves (they had given her some trouble as she had been trying to adjust them, hence the delay in the first place!) and we'd have to take some loan hearing aids as it was after 5 & the technician had gone home. Of course that meant that the loan hearing aids then had to be setup with Jarrah's prescription, and so we waited. Again.

Finally, they were ready! By now it was about 5:30-5:40pm, the kids were tired, hungry & dirty (bath time is 5pm in our house) and my roast was quickly becoming a BBQ...so we stepped out into the peak-hour traffic and I think we made it home by about 6:10pm. That was a marathon 4hrs from leaving home to arriving back again, just for a 1hr Aus Hearing appt at a centre that's 15mins from our house!

I did rescue my roast, it was not quite as charred as I thought it might have been, and we all slept well that night...

The following Monday, 5th Nov, was Jonica's Aus Hearing follow-up. Nowhere near as eventful (Praise The Lord!) and Jarrah was at school, so as I recall everything pretty much went to plan. Her results, while no better, were at least no worse than they had been in May, so it seems she hadn't had any fluctuations in the last few months. *Phew!*

Next time: January checkups, another marathon!

Wow, is it 2013 already...?

Oh dear...it seems I have been very slack (or is that busy?) and haven't posted here for a ridiculously long time. Quite a bit has happened in the last 6 months, so it might take me a few posts to catch up on everything.

Let's see, where were we?

Ah yes, more follow-up appointments...August 13th saw hearing tests for both Kaelen & Jarrah. Jarrah was fine, sailed through with no problems, and thankfully his hearing is still stable. That marks 3 years without a change! Woohoo!!

Kaelen did well but his middle ears were slightly blocked, so they couldn't be sure the results were accurate. Bother. This means coming back in about 8wks time (read: 12wks because there are no appts available) to redo the test. And, because Australian Hearing don't open their appointment books more than 3 months in advance, sometimes we can't actually make the next appointment because the month isn't open yet! Fortunately we were able to do that today, and make Jonica's next appointment as well. So, back again in late October & early November.

Speaking of Jonica, I did notice something with her around this time. I was sitting with her after a sleep one day reading a book, but we hadn't yet put her ears in. If this is the case I usually speak directly into the ear, as the kids can hear me if I speak in my normal voice at point blank range like that. We were looking at a book of family pictures and got to a page which had pictures of 'NanaPop', so of course I was pointing and saying 'NanaPop' right into her ear. She, like a good girl, was copying me as best she could but the best she could come back with was 'Nana-o', and the 'o' was virtually whispered. That gave me a really car indication of hat she actually hears without her hearing aids. 'P' is quite a high frequency sound, so of course that sits in an area where she seems to have very little hearing, and this little impromptu speech test apparently confirmed that. Poor sausage.

Tune in again soon for the next update, 29th October & 5th November Aus Hearing appointments...