Discovering Thomas' hearing loss

Being told that our son had a hearing loss didn’t really bring the worry or stress that some people may expect it to have. Instead it just brought on a flurry of questions that we desperately needed answers for.

Our son Thomas is two years old and has bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. He has been given two little hearing aids and has taken to them like a dream. Don’t get me wrong, at first he was unsure and would pull them out from time to time but from the word go we were adamant that he could tell the difference when he had them in. He still pulls them out and throws them when he has a tantrum but, in fairness, he doesn’t do that often!

The process of being told he had a hearing loss was gradual and wasn’t just thrown in our faces, which might have helped in reducing our worry. We first found out there might be an issue on the first full day of his life when hospital staff came to do a newborn hearing test. There were issues in both ears but we were told the left ear was the worst and the right was borderline. Unfortunately this meant more tests and more unanswered questions until he was a bit older.

Up until that point I suppose we were always aware there might be a more severe issue that we were yet to find out about. On the other hand, it allowed us to put it to the back of our minds until we had facts put in front of us. Why worry about something that may just be congestion or something, right?

When Thomas turned one in December 2018 we finally got confirmation of his hearing loss and we were told that he’d have to wear a hearing aid in order for him to hear ‘normally’. Yes, we had more questions (common theme here) such as “how will this effect him at school?” (from his mother) and “will he hear his friends shouting to him on the football pitch?” (from me).

The truth is that we can’t get a definite answer until Thomas gets older and he can actually tell us himself “I can/can’t hear that.” But we were given reassurance that we would receive help throughout the process and we have had it in bucket loads! At this point both myself and my wife still weren’t overly concerned - I can’t explain why we felt this way as of course you want your children to be perfect. It may have been because of the help and explanations we received along the way from NHS staff or charities such as the National Deaf Children’s Society or just a positive outlook on life.

I’m not saying you haven’t got to worry when you find out your child may have a hearing issue, but if you take anything from this blog I’d try to stress that it’s not the end of the world! You’ll get tonnes of help, lots of people are in a similar situation and in fact if you embrace it and adapt to your child’s needs a whole new world can be opened up to you. The people we’ve met, the help we’ve received and skills we are learning such as BSL have been eye opening and it’s been very fun to learn with Thomas!