Can you cheat in a hearing booth?

I took Chance's brother to another hearing appointment today.  In case any of you are keeping track, he has been in the sound booth 497,000 times.  OK, that may be an exaggeration, but he is in the sound booth A LOT.

Today, he made me laugh at the same time my heart was hurting for him as his hearing fell again.

His left ear has the most loss, and as we sat in the booth together, Chance's brother was not getting several of the sentences he was supposed to repeat back to the audiologist.  Many times, he would just look at me and shrug because he did not know what was being said with out his hearing aid on.

Then, he asked me this question," Can you hear everything they are saying?"

The fact is, I could hear every single word they were saying, but I didn't want to make my little son feel bad that he couldn't.  So I paused for a moment, trying to think of what to say, and then I just told him the truth.

"Yes, I can hear what they are saying."

With the adorable little grin that he gets sometimes, he asked me sweetly,' Can you tell Me what they are saying?"

He looked so cute sitting there in his chair asking me if I could tell him what was being said, however in an audiological booth during a hearing test, that would be cheating, so I had to say no.

You have to give the kid credit for trying to work around the problem of not being able to hear what is being said to him though.

We need another stash of batteries

Many moons ago, when Chance wore hearing aids, we had hearing aid batteries stashed in the glove compartment of the car, in my purse, at his preschool and at each set of grandparents house.  (We followed this same practice with his cochlear implants before he used rechargeable batteries)  Chance was really young so he was not a good source to tell us when his battery was dying so we just tried to be prepared everywhere we went.

We have apparently lost our edge. Today, in the middle of the afternoon, Chance's brother told us that his hearing aid batteries were dying.  Both of them, at the same time.  And five minutes later, both hearing aids turned off.  Chance's brother's hearing is such now that he cannot hear much without those hearing aids.   This was when we discovered that WE HAD NO HEARING AID BATTERIES ON HAND.  We were not prepared and our son begged us to go to the store and get some more batteries.  Quite the change from only a month ago huh, when he didn't even want to wear the aids at all.

Today is Sunday and we try not to shop on Sundays.  It is our day to go to church and spend as a family. But we could not have our son not hear for half a day, so I ran to the store and got him some batteries.

Today he  was begging for us to get some batteries; a month ago, he would have seen this as an opportunity to take the hearing aids off, but now, he realizes how much better he hears with them.

It is time to prepare ourselves again and stash hearing aid batteries in the car, in my purse and maybe at the grandparents houses.  There is something a little pathetic about a child with hearing loss having to beg for hearing aid batteries.

Crispy fall leaves just waiting to be walked through

This is a look at what is going on in our neck of the woods.  It is fall, and as we get ready for Thanksgiving, crisp leaves blanket the ground and the weather is turning colder.

I love the huge hay rolls that appear in the fall

It is also time for the cub scout derby! The derby is a highly anticipated event where cub scouts build their own cars out of a kit and then race them against each other.  Chance's brother had a marvelous time building his car with his dad.  Last year he won 3rd place, but this year he just had LOTS AND LOTS of fun racing the other boys.

The boy in the picture is not Chance's brother, just a cub scout ready to race.

The only problem we had with the derby had to do with hearing the time to turn in the cars for a weigh in.  Chance's brother was bound and determined that at church when they announced what time the cars had to be turned in, that they had said 2:00 in the afternoon.  I received an email telling us that the cars had to be in at 5:30, but my son had heard 2:00 and he could not be talked out of that time.

This is one of those interesting things that happens when you have deaf and hard of hearing children.  They sometimes don't hear things quite right, but they think that it is YOU who have heard it wrong.  It is quite comical sometimes.  We finally talked our son into believing us that the weigh in was at 5:30 but it took several days and a conversation about how at 2:00, both the boys and their dads would still be at school and work.

We have another hearing test today to see if Chance's brother has lost more hearing.  Each time we have had a test in the past several months, at least one ear has lost more hearing.  We are now looking at cochlear implants.

Wish us luck in the hearing booth!

Chance moves to Tonga and joins the United Nations

So, we went bowling again this week as a family.  This must be some kind of a record.  We had another birthday in the family and I would just like to say that, I BEAT CHANCE!

Chance participated in a re-creation of a United Nations Meeting this past week at a local university. High school kids from about 16 high schools in the area were bused in to re-create a United Nations Conference. Chance was the UNICEF (The United Nations Children's Fund), representative from the country of Tonga.   Chance and his fellow high school students had a debate on the resolutions that should be passed for children involved in and affected by armed conflict in the world.  The second debate was about children in poverty across the world.   Chance really enjoyed the experience and wants to participate again next year.

I am delighted that Chance got to participate in this program.  He is now a little more interested in taking debate classes as well.

All I can say is that if Chance is a representative from the nation of Tonga, I think I need to pay him a visit:)


Update:  Chance's brother has a big hearing test tomorrow.  By big, I mean it is his first one in 3 weeks, and each time we have gone in these past few months,  his hearing has fallen a little more. Tomorrow we will do at least a few hours of testing and see how things are progressing.  In the meantime, our boy has taken to Harry Potter and when he got a scrape across his forehead, he was delighted to see that it looked awfully similar to Harry's scare and is even in the right spot.  This made dressing up for the masquerade ball that his children's choir performed in, even more delightful for him.  You usually just can't plan scrapes like that.

After our marathon testing session, we will head over for an ice cream cone at the creamery up the street from the sound booth.  I think we may even get double scoops.  Sitting for several hours in a sound booth testing your hearing deserves a double scoop of ice cream.

How Chance celebrates Halloween

This is Chance planning and carving his Halloween pumpkin.  We have a pumpkin patch up the hill by our house and so the kids all got to pick their own pumpkins.  Naturally, everyone chose the biggest ones they could find.

Morph Suit + High Heels = Chance?

Chance has been enjoying this Halloween season.  He went to a Halloween party dressed in his morph suit, and then at some point during the party, he decided to wear the high heeled shoes of one of his friends.  He asked me how girls could wear high heels because they are really hard to walk in.  I hope those shoes are OK for his friend to wear again.... Chance's feet are not small and dainty by any stretch of the imagination.

At school and for trick or treating, Chance dressed up as Sanka from the movie Cool Runnings.  So did his brother.  Chance now says that he wants dreadlocks, but apparently he got voted "best hair" a few weeks ago at school with what he's already got so he may want to reconsider.

Chance went trick or treating with his cousin and texted me with the message that they had gathered 11 POUNDS OF CANDY!  I am going to have to bury some of it in the backyard so that Chance doesn't get sick.

The ultimate game of bowling

My phone camera blurs during action shots, but this is Chance making his move.

Chance is quite the bowler.  Our family doesn't actually go bowling all that often. but between our family trips and the few times Chance has gone bowling with friends, it has been enough to give him a knack for the game.

To celebrate Chance's younger brother's birthday, we set out for bowling as a family this past week and Chance beat us all. I like to think that I gave him a bit of competition, but he did beat me by 12 points. I am not a superb bowler but I was having a good day:)

I wonder if you can get college scholarships for bowling?  What about a soccer bowling mix?  We may need to let Chance go bowling more often.  If having long legs helps you to bowl better, Chance has that one covered.

When deaf and hard of hearing kids think they can hear you

Now that I have another child with hearing loss, I am noticing a trend.  They think they can hear you when their devices aren't on.  But I'm here to tell you that they can't.  Chance used to tell us, without his hearing aids on, that he could hear us.  It was actually pretty hilarious sometimes.  Like the time he was climbing up onto the cupboard to get something down.  It was bedtime so his hearing aids were not on. I was trying to tell him that I was saving whatever he was trying to get down, but he couldn't hear me so I suggested that he put his hearing aids back on.

"I can hear you mom!" He shouted, that's not a clue at all that he is not hearing well:)  He wasn't shouting at me because he was mad, he was shouting everything he said.

So, I turned my back to him so he couldn't see my lips.  He did not like that one bit!

"Mom!  Turn around so I can hear you!!"  Uh huh. So I can read your lips is what he was really saying.

Chance has pretty much come to the conclusion after all of this time that he is deaf, although every once in a while he will tell us he can hear us when we all know for sure that he can not.

My other son who is losing his hearing does the same thing sometimes.  You can kind of see him being confused, due to the fact that his hearing is not stable.  It came up in some middle pitches, and fell quite a bit in his right ear.  Just today, his brother asked him which ear was easier to hear out of and he shrugged his shoulders. He is in the moderate to severe hearing loss range though, so when he doesn't have a hearing aid on and he is a room away from me, telling me he hears me, I don't buy it. This is not my first time around the block with hearing loss:) He may be looking at me, but he doesn't yet have the lip reading skills of Chance.  He hasn't had the need to learn how to lip read thus far.  Chance is a master.

In honor of deaf and hard of hearing kids in our family, who claim to hear when they really don't, I give you Chance during the early years.

Chance at a hike to a waterfall when he was 5 years old.

The walk back from the waterfall.

Enlisting Chance

Chance's brother does not like wearing a hearing aid.  The situation just keeps getting better as it was discovered this week that not only does he need an aid in his left ear, but his right ear needs an aid now too.

This past week, I enlisted Chance to talk to his brother about the benefits of wearing your hearing aid/implant. The boys were sitting on bar stools at our kitchen island and the conversation went something like this:

Chance: "You need to wear your hearing aid because you need to hear."

His brother: "I can already hear."

Chance: "But you need to hear more."

His brother:" I don't like wearing it."

Chance:" Trust me, it is better to hear.  Do you see that I have my implants on everyday? That is so I can hear what is going on.  Trust me, you want to hear what is going on."

Chance's brother:" Ya, but you have implants not hearing aids!"

Chance:"I used to have hearing aids when I was younger. And I would wear them!"

Chance's brother is not fully convinced that he needs to wear his one hearing aid all the time, I don't know that he will be thrilled with wearing two.

On a funny note:  After his brother's last hearing test, I pulled Chance aside and told that his brother had lost more hearing and that if his hearing continued to fall, he would need an implant.

Chance went pale for a minute and sputtered out,"What?"

I said,'Your brother is losing more hearing and will need your support.  If he continues to lose hearing, he will need an implant.

Chance sighed with relief. "Oh, I thought you were saying that he would need one of my implants!"

What could be better than sharing one of your implants with a brother?  (Of course, with the price of implants, maybe that's not such a bad idea :> )

I think it is safe to say that Chance has built a relationship with both of his implants and does not want to part with either one of them:)

Chance holds a butterfly that his brother caught 

Below is part of the email that Chance's Chinese teacher sent me along with a video of Chance and another student talking in Chinese to each other.  I would show the video, but it takes place in the hall of the school and there is noise in the background.  Chance's dad and I were pretty excited to watch our boy talking in Chinese.  I would at least tell you what Chance said in the video, but.....I don't know any Chinese;)

Here is what his teacher had to say:

"On the last test, he and another student's video dialogue got chosen as the best of the class! Specifically, because his pronunciation, comprehension (unscripted!!!) and body language all showed he really knew what was going on."

Ya Chance! You go! 

The teacher also asked if there was anything she needed to know about the implants as she didn't have any experience working with students who have implants.  I love teachers like this.  She makes sure that Chance sits front and center in the classroom which he probably needs to focus on the sounds and have the least amount of distractions as he distinguishes between the subtle sound changes in the Chinese language.  


I would like to update the status of Chance's younger brother who is losing hearing.  He is on some medication right now to see if we can stop his hearing from falling any further.  We have a hearing test on Wednesday to help us see if the medication is working. 

Meanwhile, this boy does NOT like to wear his hearing aid.  He only has one right now, but that one is being underutilized.  I will ask him,"Do you have your hearing aid in?"  Or 'Are you wearing your hearing aid?"  He is pretty tricky and will remove his hearing aid during the course of the day.  Some of the responses I have received are:

"No, I am making macaroni and cheese."  Naturally, one can not wear a hearing aid while doing this.

"I am going outside and it might rain."  This could be used as an excuse every time it is cloudy.

"No,I am going to jump on the tramp."  This might be a valid excuse if the hearing aid fell out while he was on the trampoline, but I don't think he has ever tried jumping with the hearing aid in his ear to know.

This past week, right in the middle of choir practice, he decided to take his hearing aid out.  After all, who needs to hear while they learn to sing;)  There was a malfunction though, and before he could get it into his pocket, the thing started to squeal like hearing aids do when you take them out and they are still turned on.  I could see the panic on his face as kids started to turn and look to see where the noise was coming from and he was having a hard time opening the battery pack that turns the hearing aid off.   I ended up going up to help him.  I didn't make him put it back in right then, though I did suggest that he do so. His face was flush with embarrassment and I didn't want to draw any more attention to him and his hearing aid.  I took the aid and put it in my purse for the rest of the practice and then we talked after wards about the importance of being able to hear as best we can during choir practice.  He is really excited to be in choir so hopefully he won't try to ditch his hearing aid again while learning the songs.  Meanwhile, I am working to come up with incentives to help him keep his hearing aid in all day long.  Apparently being able to hear better, is not incentive enough right now:)

This is Chance bonding with a cow at the state fair. I think the cow likes him.

The World of Hearing Underwater

*NOTICE*

CHANCE PAXTON SPEAKING

I always wondered what it was like to hear underwater. Now I know because of the new waterproof cases that I have received. It is a miraculous sound beyond what I had imagined. Sometimes in movies they will have a sound affect when someone or something is underwater and it was kind of like that except better! I could hear myself swimming! It was AMAZING!!!!! I can hear my friends when they are talking to me when we go free swimming! It is awesome and exciting!!!!!!

I think that Chance likes the water proof Aqua+ covers we bought from Cochlear at the beginning of the summer:)

Chance standing in a natural spring area in the mountains near our house.

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