by Michaela Colgan
on 26th April, 2024
Sometimes I Just Wish they Would Listen to Me
So as you can imagine it was a shock to hear that he needed a hearing test before he could be referred to the speech and language team.
Even though I had stated that I had no concern with his hearing, I was told there was no harm in having it done and it was part of the process.
Tuesday 4th April comes round, nice early start, arriving at the hospital for 9.30am. I book him in at the reception and start the waiting game.
A lady calls him in and off we go, all confident and smug!
We enter a room within a room within room, which is all dark and a little terrifying actually.
The consultant quickly rushes in to the audiologist and mutters “move the chair, move the chair..He’s in a wheelchair!”
Great start, I feel even less confident about this as they have clearly not read his notes, therefore are not going to know anything about my son.
The consultant asked me for Zachariah's difficulties and whether or not we had a concern about his hearing, I reply with his long list of diagnosis and confidently tell them that there is nothing wrong with his hearing.
She grabs hold of the severely visually impaired diagnosis and quickly finds a toy with flashing lights.
I look at Tim and just know that he is thinking exactly the same as me..’why is she getting out eye stimulant toys when we are here about his hearing?..It’s only going to distract him.
Anyway, the test begins!
The audiologist makes noises with different instruments behind him and the consultant sits in front to wait for reaction.
As soon as I realised this was how they were doing the test I interfered by explaining to them that with Zachariahs development delay he can be very slow to react, therefore to be patient with him.
As the audiologist continues to make sounds, the consultant starts to pull faces of uncertainty.
I've got to see.. So I interfere again by standing behind the consultant to give me a clear visual on Zachariah.
The next sound is made and instantly Zachariah stills and has his usual curious look upon his face… He heard it and he reacted!
The consultant shakes her head in an, "iffy", way as if to say she's not sure.
Once again interfering, mummy gets a little mad and stresses that he's hearing all these noises and although he's not smiling he's reacting through stillness.
After what felt like a very long time, we are advised to get Zachariah to sleep in the waiting room and come back when he’s asleep to do a different type of test which does not rely on reaction.
I had to do this on my lap as they wouldn't be able to get the device in his ear whilst in his buggy with the head supports. My arms begin to burn, my legs begin to twitch..
My son is not the small baby he once was and was becoming very difficult to hold.
The audiologist takes us into another room and begins the test. To try and cut this story short, the test failed!
A 6 minute test that takes 30 minutes fails due to too much noise and a fidgety boy, the device is unable to get a correct reading, therefore they have to fail him and refer him.
This is beyond frustrating as we know Zachariah has great hearing and with everything else going on we could do with one less thing to be worrying about.
I am writing this blog to share a day in the world of Zachariah and show the frustrations some of these days bring.
And I am not writing to call the NHS or the staff, as they are just doing their job! xx
