I'm clearly in the wrong profession.
The audiologist gives me some price points.. $700, $1000, $1500.. per ear. PER EAR. How many ears does my kid have again?
Yikes.
Then he breaks it down. The $700 model, with the APSEA discount, would actually be $522. PER EAR.
And then ear moulds. $46 each. FORTY SIX. PER EAR. And while he's growing they'll be replaced every few months.
I'm clearly in the wrong profession. Who knew little pieces of plastic could cost so much. I should go in to making those for a living.
The audiologist calls me later. There's another option, less bells and whistles (which are useless and wouldn't be used anyways). This one is $382 per ear. We'll take it.
Showing posts with label hearing test. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hearing test. Show all posts
Thursday, 16 October 2014
Tuesday, 7 October 2014
Shell Shock.
The audiologist just gave us the news that no parent wants to hear: our child has moderate-severe hearing loss in both ears.
The next few minutes, or were they hours, pass in a blur of information.
He will need hearing aids. Is an excellent candidate for hearing aids. Likely won't have 'deaf speech' if we get treatment started as soon as possible. Will need hours of speech therapy. Someone from a foundation will be calling. We will need a speech language pathologist. It could worsen. It might not worsen. We will be referred to an ENT [ear nose throat specialist]. The audiologists do the fittings for hearing aids.
I am in shell shock.
I know deep down inside of me that this is happening. But part of me is in denial. Another part of me is thankful that this is the only issue. I know that he is here with us. He is happy. He appears to be otherwise healthy. We are lucky. We can do this.
But still I am in shell shock. Denial.
The one good thing I remember from the time following his diagnosis is the speech language pathologist we had already worked with. Whom I had passed in the hall minutes before, quickly stopping to show her how big O had gotten and his cute little skeleton outfit, and had given the thumbs down to when she asked how the testing was going because I still couldn't speak it. She came in the room, and took our case.
Stole it might be a better word.
I'm pretty sure the audiologist I'm not a fan of was planning to have us work with a different SLP. But she came in and said, in no uncertain terms, she was going to be working with O.
I might still have been shell shocked at that point. But next time I see her I will be letter her know how grateful I am for that.
As I had spent the morning venting on twitter about the lack of bedside manner from the audiologist I took a quick minute to post an update. There was an outpouring of support, of DM's, of kind words. They helped alleviate the shell shock.
Little by little I started to come around. We can do this and we will do this because we must do this. We will do everything and anything we can to see to it O has every available opportunity. That he knows how loved he is, and how awesome he is, and how normal he is.
The next few minutes, or were they hours, pass in a blur of information.
He will need hearing aids. Is an excellent candidate for hearing aids. Likely won't have 'deaf speech' if we get treatment started as soon as possible. Will need hours of speech therapy. Someone from a foundation will be calling. We will need a speech language pathologist. It could worsen. It might not worsen. We will be referred to an ENT [ear nose throat specialist]. The audiologists do the fittings for hearing aids.
I am in shell shock.
I know deep down inside of me that this is happening. But part of me is in denial. Another part of me is thankful that this is the only issue. I know that he is here with us. He is happy. He appears to be otherwise healthy. We are lucky. We can do this.
But still I am in shell shock. Denial.
 |
| The cute little outfit I just had to show our SLP |
The one good thing I remember from the time following his diagnosis is the speech language pathologist we had already worked with. Whom I had passed in the hall minutes before, quickly stopping to show her how big O had gotten and his cute little skeleton outfit, and had given the thumbs down to when she asked how the testing was going because I still couldn't speak it. She came in the room, and took our case.
Stole it might be a better word.
I'm pretty sure the audiologist I'm not a fan of was planning to have us work with a different SLP. But she came in and said, in no uncertain terms, she was going to be working with O.
I might still have been shell shocked at that point. But next time I see her I will be letter her know how grateful I am for that.
As I had spent the morning venting on twitter about the lack of bedside manner from the audiologist I took a quick minute to post an update. There was an outpouring of support, of DM's, of kind words. They helped alleviate the shell shock.
Little by little I started to come around. We can do this and we will do this because we must do this. We will do everything and anything we can to see to it O has every available opportunity. That he knows how loved he is, and how awesome he is, and how normal he is.
Monday, 6 October 2014
A Diagnosis - part 2
I was thrilled when the audiologist called me later that same day to say she could get us in within two weeks.
We would have to sleep deprive O in order to make sure he would sleep through the test, but she assured me that we would have whatever time needed to get him to sleep once we got there.
The morning of the appointment came, I had a cranky baby in my arms, and my phone rang. It was the receptionist for the audiology dept. calling to cancel as one of the audiologists were out sick. I would hear back, she said, with a new appointment.
About a week later that finally happened. A new audiologist I hadn't dealt with called to schedule a time. He seemed flustered and short, deciding that he would bring us back without a second audiologist in a week's time.
Again I sleep deprived O and got ready for the appointment. Since he is now also solely bottle fed I made sure he was hungry and tired by the time we left. When arrived we went to the waiting room. When this new audiologist came to get us he decided to again run a tympanometry. No real surprise but O's ear had flip flopped again - one was showing decent movement, the other was not.
We then went in to the room where he was to perform the test. O was restless and hungry, but this audiologist didn't seem to care. He went about everything else, so finally I just took out the bottle and started to feed O.
The testing took the better part of two hours, during which time O made a valiant effort to stay asleep in my arms. Have you ever held a baby for two hours trying to be as still as possible? That shit sucks.
But I digress. After two hours we were no better off than we had been. Since he wasn't very open or talkative with us before or during we had no idea what was really happening. It turns out the audiologist ran a more specific version of the ABR instead of the bone vibration test we had been told would be performed. He was more or less confident in the results (which didn't look very good) but he wanted us to come back, again, to do the bone vibration test.
The very next week I again sleep deprived my baby. Again he ran a tympanometry test and this time there was decent movement in both ears. The second audiologist was a bit better, but barely, when it came to expressing what was happening during the test. I volun-told my husband that it was his turn to hold O during the test.
Nearly three hours later we had the results: O has moderate-severe hearing loss in both ears.
We would have to sleep deprive O in order to make sure he would sleep through the test, but she assured me that we would have whatever time needed to get him to sleep once we got there.
The morning of the appointment came, I had a cranky baby in my arms, and my phone rang. It was the receptionist for the audiology dept. calling to cancel as one of the audiologists were out sick. I would hear back, she said, with a new appointment.
About a week later that finally happened. A new audiologist I hadn't dealt with called to schedule a time. He seemed flustered and short, deciding that he would bring us back without a second audiologist in a week's time.
Again I sleep deprived O and got ready for the appointment. Since he is now also solely bottle fed I made sure he was hungry and tired by the time we left. When arrived we went to the waiting room. When this new audiologist came to get us he decided to again run a tympanometry. No real surprise but O's ear had flip flopped again - one was showing decent movement, the other was not.
We then went in to the room where he was to perform the test. O was restless and hungry, but this audiologist didn't seem to care. He went about everything else, so finally I just took out the bottle and started to feed O.
The testing took the better part of two hours, during which time O made a valiant effort to stay asleep in my arms. Have you ever held a baby for two hours trying to be as still as possible? That shit sucks.
But I digress. After two hours we were no better off than we had been. Since he wasn't very open or talkative with us before or during we had no idea what was really happening. It turns out the audiologist ran a more specific version of the ABR instead of the bone vibration test we had been told would be performed. He was more or less confident in the results (which didn't look very good) but he wanted us to come back, again, to do the bone vibration test.
The very next week I again sleep deprived my baby. Again he ran a tympanometry test and this time there was decent movement in both ears. The second audiologist was a bit better, but barely, when it came to expressing what was happening during the test. I volun-told my husband that it was his turn to hold O during the test.
.JPG) |
| Sleep deprived and deceptively happy - that only lasted a minute |
Nearly three hours later we had the results: O has moderate-severe hearing loss in both ears.
Sunday, 5 October 2014
A Diagnosis - part 1
When you're about to leave the hospital, after just having your sweet baby they do a simple screening to check for possible hearing problems. They stick these little headphones in your child's ear and bounce a small sound-wave in. The test is checking for the echo. If an echo is picked up, your baby passes. If not, they are referred, which means further testing is needed.
O was born during a particularly busy period for the maternity ward. The day I went in I was alone in Labour & Delivery. But by the time I had given birth there had been four more babies born. Three more followed shortly after.
It should be no surprise then that our nurse was run completely off of her feet. And visibly pregnant. When she came to do the first attempt we mentioned our concern over O being slightly congested. When he referred she brushed it off, as she said three other babies that morning had referred, and decided she would try again in a little while.
She came back four or so hours later, and tried again. Again he referred. "It's no big deal" she said, "babies quite often refer due to fluid from being in the womb, and he's being quite squrimy. They'll bring you back in a month to try again."
That was fine, we finally got our discharge, and we left.
I won't go in to full details on the whirlwind that was our first few weeks at home, but suffice to say it entailed lots of missing sleep, lots of time trying to get O to nurse, two ER trips [one for me as my legs ballooned and one for O because my little squirmer tore his umbilical cord], several trips to the breastfeeding clinic, a visit to our doctor, and appointments with a speech language pathologist because O was having issues with his latch.
It was during a follow up visit with the SLP around the one month mark that I mentioned we had never heard back with an appointment for the hearing test. She decided since we were there already and it was sort of quiet to quickly grab the main assistant in the audiology dept.
Not more than five minutes later she came to run the test. Again O was fairly squirmy and kept referring. The assistant decided to bring us back again in a week to do an ABR [Auditory Brainstem Response]. On our way out she had an audiologist quickly run a tympanometry to check for any fluid in his ears. This is a simple test, again with headphone looking things inserted into the ear to push air in checking for proper eardrum movement. One was showing acceptable movement, one was not.
The next week we were back again, with a sleepy cranky baby.
On our way in for the ABR they decided they wanted to run another tympanometry to check for any fluid in his ears. This time the opposite ear had less than ideal movement. It came as no surprise, when forty-five minutes later the results from the ABR were again referred.
An audiologist came in and talked to us about it. She seemed fairly positive and so I remained positive as well. She told us they would like to do a bone vibration test, essentially bypassing O's middle ear to check for hearing loss. This test, she said, requires two audiologists so may be trickier to book. They would do their best to get us in as soon as possible.
O was born during a particularly busy period for the maternity ward. The day I went in I was alone in Labour & Delivery. But by the time I had given birth there had been four more babies born. Three more followed shortly after.
 |
| My sweet squishy boy shortly after birth |
It should be no surprise then that our nurse was run completely off of her feet. And visibly pregnant. When she came to do the first attempt we mentioned our concern over O being slightly congested. When he referred she brushed it off, as she said three other babies that morning had referred, and decided she would try again in a little while.
She came back four or so hours later, and tried again. Again he referred. "It's no big deal" she said, "babies quite often refer due to fluid from being in the womb, and he's being quite squrimy. They'll bring you back in a month to try again."
That was fine, we finally got our discharge, and we left.
I won't go in to full details on the whirlwind that was our first few weeks at home, but suffice to say it entailed lots of missing sleep, lots of time trying to get O to nurse, two ER trips [one for me as my legs ballooned and one for O because my little squirmer tore his umbilical cord], several trips to the breastfeeding clinic, a visit to our doctor, and appointments with a speech language pathologist because O was having issues with his latch.
It was during a follow up visit with the SLP around the one month mark that I mentioned we had never heard back with an appointment for the hearing test. She decided since we were there already and it was sort of quiet to quickly grab the main assistant in the audiology dept.
Not more than five minutes later she came to run the test. Again O was fairly squirmy and kept referring. The assistant decided to bring us back again in a week to do an ABR [Auditory Brainstem Response]. On our way out she had an audiologist quickly run a tympanometry to check for any fluid in his ears. This is a simple test, again with headphone looking things inserted into the ear to push air in checking for proper eardrum movement. One was showing acceptable movement, one was not.
The next week we were back again, with a sleepy cranky baby.
On our way in for the ABR they decided they wanted to run another tympanometry to check for any fluid in his ears. This time the opposite ear had less than ideal movement. It came as no surprise, when forty-five minutes later the results from the ABR were again referred.
An audiologist came in and talked to us about it. She seemed fairly positive and so I remained positive as well. She told us they would like to do a bone vibration test, essentially bypassing O's middle ear to check for hearing loss. This test, she said, requires two audiologists so may be trickier to book. They would do their best to get us in as soon as possible.
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