Ear ear Alby

At 8:15 this morning Alby and I were both dressed, fed and in the car heading off to the hospital in Richmond (a snappy 40 minute drive away) for a hearing test.

As a newborn Alby failed his hearing test. Glue ear in the right ear ensured regular trips to the otology department where he was plugged into a range of devices so they could test how sound travelled to and from ear to brain, where the congestion was occurring and how severe it was.  I won’t pretend I hit it off with the otology bunch to begin with – the first two sessions saw me leaving the hospital near tears (firstly due to a mean lady whose incompetent testing and uncompassionate approach made baby Albert the Bear cry like he had never done before and then later simply because I wasn’t prepared to hear my Trouble Monkey was anything but perfect) but they do a good job.

Over Alby’s first year we attended around 6 different check ups.  The first were the hardest – as they requested a baby deep in sleep and I found such pretty much impossible to produce.  Inevitably the more I would try to jostle Alby to sleep the more agitated he became and the harder the sessions were.  By the time he was a year old though the testing involved toys and dancing monkeys.  Alby’s glue ear prevailed but the sessions were no longer a battle and with each test the lovely ear doctors of North Yorkshire not only learnt more but were able to reassure me that the congestion was very limited and unlikely to have any real impact.

A failure on my side of book in for one appointment caused us to be kicked off the books and, to my shame, it has taken me a year to book in a follow up appointment.  And so, on this cold and windy morning Alby and I, both still half asleep, hit the motorway for another testing session. 

Alby’s age presents a few challenges to testing, obviously.  The baby focused games would go right over his head causing him to get bored and disengage, making the testing inconclusive whereas there is a fear that the older games would be too hard. 

To start with they game him a board with pegs and he had to slot different shapes over the pegs every time he heard a sound.  Later the game changed to dropping a shape into a bucket every time the sound was played.   He was very cute with both games; he would hold the shape really close to the ear they were testing whilst he waited for the sound and only moved it from the ear when the sound appeared.  As we couldn’t hear any of the noises we had no idea if he was getting it right or not but we’d cheer and clap hoping our encouragement was promoting him the right way. They tested the right ear then the left ear and then the right ear again.  When he didn’t have ear plugs in, they were looking into his ears with a range of contraptions.  Bless him, it went on for an exhausting 45 minutes.  Half way through he announced “Hard work mummy” – poor sod.  It’s no wonder he fell asleep in the car on the way home.  He was fried.

In conclusion, there is still very minor glue ear in the right but it is so minor that it isn’t having any impact on his development or day to day hearing.  The congestion is so small that they have discharged him.  Well done Albs.