Magic Ears and Cutting Edge Style

Its been a month and a half since my last entry and I should start by thanking everyone for the messages of support that we received as a result.  Do not fear, far from spending the last 6 or so weeks feeling sorry for ourselves it is more a case of looking back at the first few days and wondering what all the fuss was about.  I'm not saying that everything is perfect but we have just got on with the job in hand.

The Thursday before Easter was the big day when Tom was fitted with his hearing aids.  We had been up to Christchurch a couple of weeks earlier to have molds of his ear canals taken and to go through the options for Toms new hearing aids.  The colour choice was a bit limited for the model he needed, the most powerful one available, but we went for a light blue with dark blue ear molds.  The ear molds will be changed every 6 weeks or so, and so we may work our way through the rainbow of colours available.  We expected Tom to get a bit upset when his magic ears were switched on for the first time and he did not disappoint, working himself into quite a state.  Over the next couple of days though he improved and by Easter Monday was back to his normal happy self.

The slight frustration for us was that one of the molds was not quite a good enough fit and so if it was not at just the right spot in his ear, it would whistle constantly.  Over the last few weeks we have got pretty efficient at putting them in and there is less squeaking and Tom is getting his second molds tomorrow which, fingers crossed, will improve the situation.

As for how Tom is doing with the aids, it's still early days and so impossible to know for sure that he is getting the full benefit from them at their current settings.  Over the next months we will record any progress in his monitoring file, Sue (the Deaf Adviser) is visiting every couple of weeks to check progress and he will have more hearing tests too so that if the plan needs to change it will be caught sooner rather than later.  Our appointment at the ENT clinic was reassuring with no problems found and their feeling was that the aids should be sufficient (but still to watch this space)

From a practical necessity we have also had to decide what Toms signature fashion accessory is going to be...the headband!  With the hearing aids needing to be the most powerful, and so the biggest, and his ears being pretty small, there is just no way that they would stay tucked behind in place.  Instead any movement sends them flapping out to the side, increasing the feedback and getting caught on clothing.  Tape did not work and so in a stroke of  genius Amy butchered an old pair of shorts for their elastic and a new style was born.  Since then we have ordered some proper headbands, in a multitude of colours, and so Tom is always looking pretty flash! 

We're off down south on holiday next week, catching up with friends near Dunedin and Invercargil, visiting the Catlins and having a few nights in Te Anau.  We can't wait, despite the forecast for constant rain...