Twelve and Six Months On

Twelve months ago, Henry was five months old.  After numerous appointments and tests and re-tests, he had been diagnosed in Dubai (where we were living) with moderate hearing loss, fitted with hearing aids and sent on our way.  From my online research I understood that Henry would benefit from some sort of early intervention, but I thought this was more of a bonus, not the necessity it actually is.  I made an appointment at the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) in Sydney, and I feel that this was the turning point to getting us on the right track with Henry.  Melissa, who would become our therapist, took the time to explain hearing loss, early intervention, and the sort of services that were available in Australia.  Despite my lack of knowledge of all things hearing related, I had a mother’s instinct that Henry still wasn’t hearing, despite wearing his hearing aids every waking moment.  With Melissa’s support, we pursued this over the next few months.  The assessments and tests we did in Australia over the next few months, combined with my observations and Henry’s lack of progress hearing-wise, resulted in a clear diagnoses in December of profound deafness.  These six months between our first trip to Australia, and Henry’s surgery in January, were fraught with worry, confusion, uncertainty, sadness and stress.

Our next turning point was 4^th February 2011 when Henry was switched on.  In the last six months, Henry has moved ahead in leaps and bounds.  It seems like he was just waiting for a chance to hear and access the rest of the world.  Our quiet, serious little baby has been transformed into an engaging, curious, very intelligent, still sometimes serious, but also very noisy, little boy.  Before the surgery we were so worried about him getting CIs, how much work they would be to manage and maintain.  But most days we barely notice he has them.  I put them on first thing in the morning, and then I just have two normal, hearing children who play together and fight together and do everything that any other child does.  I am eternally grateful that Henry has been able to enter our hearing world, and especially at such a young age.

This week Henry had his six month post-implantation assessment, and even though we knew he was doing well, it was so nice receive such positive feedback from his audiologist and therapists and to compete the same assessments he did six months ago, but this time with completely different results.  In one assessment on speech perception and language, he got a score of 1/44 last time.   This time he got 36/44, which is an awesome result.  I am so proud of how far my little boy has come and so grateful to everyone involved in our progress, particularly RIDBC and SCIC.