WCAT Ambassador Thomas recently got hearing aids. His mum Alison told us more.
At the end April, Thomas went to the ENT and it was decided that he would benefit from wearing hearing aids.
We went to the hearing centre and the audiologist fitted Thomas for his hearing aids. The process involved Thomas sitting really quiet and still while a putty was pumped into his ear and allowed to set hard into a mould of his ear.
He was then allowed to choose the colour of the part that sits behind the ear hook. Thomas wanted Spider-Man colours, red and blue, because Spider-Man has super hearing too!
When we went to collect them Thomas was slightly overwhelmed and was very quiet. Walking home a car horn beeped – something that wouldn’t normally phase Thomas – and he suddenly started crying. We got home and he couldn’t cope with the noise of the television being on. He hated his hearing aids and wanted them out; it was then that I realised how quiet his world must have been before. He was hearing about 65%.
I took him to his bedroom and we sat quietly, I then said I would leave him to sit only in his own noise and he could be as loud or quiet as he wanted. I went and sat outside his door feeling sad that he was feeling overwhelmed. Within a few minutes I heard him making quiet noises while he played with his playmobil, gradually the noises he was making got louder, the silly noises started and within 40 minutes Thomas was laughing and having fun! The relief I felt was huge. I quietly walked into his room and he said “Mummy I love my hearing aids. I’m like Spider-Man!”
The following day, he went to school wearing his hearing aids. I wondered how he would cope with the noise of his classroom, but his teacher said he did brilliantly. The first couple of weeks he wore them only for school but now he wears them all day and takes them out around dinner time. I’m so proud of how well and how fast he adapted to them. He now tells me when they need new batteries and he is able to take them out and put them in by himself. He thinks he’s pretty cool having superhero hearing like Spider-Man!’