Six months after switch-on: There's still a long way to go

“Is she hearing? Are the cochlear implants working? How long before she speaks? Was that a word? Surely she should be speaking by now? Why does she scream so much? Is that normal? How long do other parents get their child to keep their ‘ears’ on for? Are we doing this right? We’ve got to be doing well, surely?”

The audiologists have called… “Oh, Primrose is behind on her development…  Not wearing her ‘ears’ enough… So she should be saying more? OK, thank you.”

That pretty much sums up conversations that we had on a daily basis, swinging between indecision and scepticism, between thinking she’s hearing and that they weren’t working.

When Primrose had her ‘ears’ turned on and noise first went wooshing into her silent world, there was a moment in the audiologists, where she reacted ever so slightly. Just a glance. The fantastic team at Nottingham were happy. So naturally, as the laymen, we were too.

Not long after, puppies barked in a different room, and Primrose immediately turned and pointed at what was on the other side of the wall. Great! This was only a week after the big switch-on and felt like one step forward. Primrose had reacted without any suggestions to guide her to it, only her new sense of sound.

Then, for a while there was not much more and the questions I alluded to earlier really kicked in. “Can she hear? Are they working? How do we know they aren’t malfunctioning? How long before she speaks?”

After a few months, just before the entire world was turned on its head with the Virus That Shall Not Be Named, Primrose was beginning to give us a little bit back. Now, I couldn’t say for certain at the time. I wasn’t confident enough to override it all being coincidence, but sounds began to form on her lips. Murmurs of ‘Ma,’ ‘Momma,’ ‘Da’ and ‘dog’… with some added in ‘Pas’ and ‘Burs’, that mean little as words, but meant everything in terms of our daughter experimenting with her voice.

On top of this, at our audiology appointment, Primrose was doing fantastically. Happy to sit there and play with the toys while her mapping was tinkered with. So much so, they managed to get her to the maximum they wanted to take her to by the second visit. We did have problems with Primrose’s magnets staying on and so we did push to get a stronger set as they were constantly falling off. It’s hard enough to keep them on a baby’s head, without them being extremely weak. They duly helped with the matter though, and this made life oh so much easier for us… at least in the short term.

Then the Virus That Shall Not Be Named fell like a cloud, and obviously nothing was the same for any of us after that. In terms of Primrose, it meant she did not get to go to playschool for close to seven months. Nor could the audiologists offer the same service as they usually would. This is completely understandable in the circumstances, but both I believe must have had some form of an impact on our daughter’s development. We were told on our latest review, 3 weeks ago, that she was a little bit behind.

So what does a little bit behind look like? Well, after the schools closed, with no interaction with other children, Primrose began to stagnate. She seemed to become lazy with speech. Preferring to use sign language, when and where she knew the sign, which wasn’t a problem for me and Primrose’s mum as we want her to be bilingual. Part of that bilingualism though is being able to speak, and seven to eight months in, our daughter was now saying ‘Ma’ and ‘Da’ less than she was before. Even ‘dog’ was barely used. The only real thing we heard from her with regularity was screams. The most high pitched, falsetto, glass-rattling screams you could imagine. Surely that was something to be happy about? That it was proof she was hearing? Or was she just making a noise because she could feel the vibrations? Again the questions and doubts started.

Check back next week for part two of this blog, where Primrose returns to playschool and the family get some happy news…