Charlotte's Story
Charlotte was happy child and having a teacher and engineer as parents and a nurse as a nan, we thought we had everything covered! Although suffering from ongoing bouts of croup through her early years, nothing made us think that Charlotte had any hearing concerns.
When Charlotte first started speaking, her language was amazing. Her diction was clear and she loved to tell stories and chat all day. However, by the age of 3 we noticed that her diction had changed and certain letters were no longer clear. We thought she was just going through the next stage of development and this would sort itself out with time.
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With Charlotte starting day-care at Redgum Childcare in 2019, we were offered the chance to have her hearing tested by the Hear our Heart bus. When we viewed the hearing loss checklist our hearts sank as Charlotte ticked so many of the boxes! After several tests by the Heart our Heart Bus and reading the results, we organised a hearing test with Hearing Australia.
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After going for this initial appointment, we were shocked that Charlotte could barely hear us and were disappointed in ourselves that we had not picked up this hearing loss sooner. Hear our Heart called us some weeks later to see how we were going and encourage us to get an ENT specialist appointment. Thankfully we had already been able to get a referral to see the ENT. |
After the wonderful ENT Dr Sirigiri saw Charlotte he agreed that she needed grommets and was booked in for surgery. After a cancellation, we received a call some months later and Charlotte had her surgery. The Dr stated that he needed to increase the size of the grommet he was originally planning on using due to the scope of the blockage but we were simply happy the surgery had been done!
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Charlotte still has her grommets in some 9 months after surgery. She is very careful about looking after her ears and keeping them dry – however this does not stop her love of the water! Her most recent hearing screening by Hearing Australia shows the grommets have had a huge impact with her hearing back within normal range.
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When Charlotte was in Kindergarten we noticed some of the old 'habits' of hearing loss and immediately rang the Hear our Heart bus to book her in. She had follow up hearing tests with the bus which revealed the glue ear had come back. She is now booked in for another set of grommets.
We are so grateful for the Heart our Heart bus and the testing they do, which started Charlotte on the road to improved hearing. |
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