Audiologist- Visit #1

February is a busy month for us generally as we prepare for Bug's birthday and Valentines Day and it always seems to have a lot of activities for a cold month. Besides all this our family started looking for our first home, so the month was busy, but I still dreaded the appointment at the end, but the day finally came. At this point we had contacted our families and asked for prayers and good thoughts that if possible Tiny's hearing could be restored or that it was something minor that could be fixed easily. We'd done a little research and we were really hoping it was going to be a drainage problem and that tubes could be the solution to her not hearing, but we were also trying not to get our hopes up.

I had a wonderful sister offer to watch Bug so the Hubs and I could focus completely on Tiny and what the doctor was saying. We got to the small front office of the audiologist and there was an older couple waiting. We got the paperwork and sat down to fill it out, finished it and sat and waited to be taken back.

Tiny was a bit of handful as there wasn't really kid stuff for her to do, but she was having fun being with her Dad who is her all time favorite person 99% of the time and other other 1% he's probably still her favorite but she's sassy like that.

I couldn't help but look at all the informational posters and art around the small room. The thing that drew my attention over and over though was a framed quote by Helen Keller. It read, "Blindness separates people from things; deafness separates people from people."

It broke my heart to admit to myself, but I could fully relate to this. During the time after the first hearing test in our home and this appointment, I realized just how disconnected Tiny was from us. She would interact with the world around her, but moments of connection with people, even with us her family, weren't long or really deep. It also compounded what a nursery teacher had said to me not to long before this visit. "We love your daughter and she is mostly sweet, but she doesn't really play with the other kids. She either fights over a toy and gets angry or lately she just finds a toy and goes and sits in a corner. Is this normal for her?"

I decided to tell her a little about what was going on and that I appreciated that she was keeping an eye on my daughter and had felt comfortable voicing her concerns. If we hadn't already been on this journey, I might have been offended at the implication that something was "wrong" with my child, but by this point, I was finally really letting myself see Tiny's situation for what is was- not normal.

Even knowing that her ears weren't working properly, the almost month it took before this first appointment was frustrating. I kept having to remind myself, "She can't hear you and yelling is never a good option," especially when her older sister was around to hear it or was the cause of it. What good did yelling do? Nothing. Not even for my hearing daughter, it only made her sad and scared and me feel foolish and sad I had done it. I did my best to remember that, and to not yell but it was still hard.

So back to the audiologists visit. They finally called us back and the nurse tried to put probes in her ears, but the secretary came and needed something from me, a copy of an insurance card or something, so I got up and left to finish up what they needed. She gave me a few candies when we were done because we could both hear Tiny down the hall in the other room freaking out.

Candy worked for a few minutes when I got back, but she still was trying to pull the probes out before the tests were finished. Her Dad managed to get her to hold still long enough to get some readings and the nurse left. Then the Audiologist came in, Dr. W.

He looked over the readings and wanted to try one more time, nothing doing, she would not leave the probes in long enough. So he decided he'd like to try some booth tests.

For those of you that don't know what that is, they take your child into a semi-soundproof box and try and see if they respond to different tones, pitches, frequencies and at different decibels to see when/if they respond. They also have lights that flick on and off and some have screens in them that flash pictures.

Before the booth test he wanted to talk to us and get some more history. We told him how she passed her newborn screening, how she had started to talk, how we noticed things that made me worry, about the visit with Dr. P the new pediatrician, all of it. He took notes and asked about family history.

Tiny was squirming all over and since we'd moved rooms, she wanted to explore and touch everything, including all the fall apart ear models in the room and the machines and computers. We were trying to keep her interested in the toys and snacks we brought while we talked to him, but she just wasn't very happy about it all.

So we cut to the chase and tried the booth test. She wouldn't go in.

So her Dad went in and she shut him in and stayed out. So we went back to the receptionist, got another candy and tried to bribe her to go in with her Dad. She did, but wanted to come right back out after getting the candy.

I helped keep the door shut while he tried to play with her on his lap with a few toys that happened to be in the booth. She finally stayed in but went in a corner and refused to let him hold her or look at anyone. After she calmed down, she let her Dad hold her over his shoulder, but since she wasn't facing the flashing lights and every time he tried to turn so she might be, she freaked out. So, finally Dr. W shook his head and said we were done.

He asked us if she still took naps and what times those were and we told him, she hadn't been a regular napper for a few months now, we could count on a nap maybe every other day or ever three days and the time could be anywhere in a four block time frame that she went down. It was at this point I regretted not being a mom that made my kids have regular daily naps at a regular time, or at least Tiny.

Still, he suggested we make another appointment and try and come back while she was sleeping. We should make it an extra long appointment as well, because if we could get her to be asleep, they could run a lot more tests without her pulling on things and he specifically wanted to run a test call an ABR or Automated Brain stem Response test and she needed to be quite and still for a long time with that one.

He told us he didn't want to make any judgements yet, since the OAE tests never got to fully finish with her pulling on the probes, but they had been able to get results from the fluid tests and it didn't appear she had any fluid behind her eardrums that would keep them from functioning.

I felt sick. I also felt frustrated. We still didn't really have answers. We had to come again and hope that we could have her be asleep and stay asleep long enough to get any. All of these were big maybes because who knew if she would go to sleep at the time we wanted, or STAY asleep for that matter, but what choice did we really have?

So we gathered up our stuff, went to the front office and scheduled another appoint. It was the end of February by now and the next appointment they had available with the extended time we needed, and in their office here in our town, wasn't until the middle of March. It was hard, I wanted answers now. I took a breath and sucked it up, and asked they call us if there were any cancellations and we could come in sooner, then we left.

My eyes read the quote again as we left, "Blindness separates people from things; deafness separates people from people."

My heart ached and I wondered and worried at how separate Tiny was from us. Did she feel it? Did she know we loved her? Did she feel alone and confused? I knew she had heard us when she was a baby, but when had she stopped hearing us? What was the last thing I said, that she really heard? Was I yelling and angry at her because she was 'ignoring' me? Was it the sound of my voice saying something kind?

I can't lie and say I haven't shouted since that day, I know I have- in frustration and in upset- at her sister or life or even her despite the fact that she can't hear me. But when I have I almost always regret it and apologize to both my girls, the one that can hear my voice and the one that can't. I try and remind myself that not only do words matter, but how we say them, and how loudly we say them can matter just as much. Sometimes, even if people can't hear us, the words are worth saying anyway.


Observations: I wish, when initially making this appointment, I had asked what kind of tests they would be running and what we could do to help make them go more smoothly. Had I known it was better she be asleep, I would have tried from this initial visit. I also would have brought more than a fruit snack and a favorite stuffed animal and water bottle if I'd known they didn't see kids often so there wasn't much for Tiny to do or look at. I knew generalities, but not specifics, and I learned since this appointment to ask more initial questions to save ourselves rescheduling and frustration.