Archibald and Oliver’s Hearing Journey

20/07/2025

We have dates!

August 26th - implant surgery day! This will be done at the Queensland Children’s Hospital. Oliver will stay in over night.

September 3rd - switch on day! This is when the processors will be turn on and our precious boy will hear his first real sounds. This will be done at Hear and Say Ashgrove.

45 days 🦻

13/06/2025

The past two months have been filled with various tedious appointments for Oliver. Due to the fact that cochlear implant surgery is such an invasive procedure; the hospital needs to be doubly sure that it is required. This therefore involves repeated tests both with and without hearing aids. We have also had to postpone or redo a couple due to sickness and Oliver’s ears being blocked. Here is an example of a typical puppet test.

28/04/2025

08/04/2025

Today we received results back from an MRI and CT scan that we had done last week.

CT- confirmed morphology of the cochlear is normal.
MRI - showed auditory nerve (the connection where electricity can travel to the brain) is present.

Both these results mean that Oliver is an acceptable candidate for cochlear implants! 🦻We will now wait for the audiologists to do their final checks with the hearing aids whilst the cochlear implant team of doctors make their preparations. At this stage implant surgeon mentioned the implants could be done at 7 months! All good news 🙌🏼

31/03/2025

Recently we have been having issues with Archie’s processors. Turning on and then off sporadically and while travelling in Vanuatu one stopped working completely. Here is Archie without a care in the world enjoying the sounds of music coming out of the speaker. As frustrating as it can be not having his processors work we are still thankful for this little soul and the joy of listening. Now to wait for the processors to get repaired!

23/03/2025

2 years today since having Archibald’s processors switched on! Still amazed at how far he has come in his speech and amazed at how well he can hear and listen to things. Such a privilege to able to listen to Archibald sing 🥰

23/03/2025

2 years today since having Archibald’s processors switched on! Still amazed at how far he has come in his speech and amazed at how well he can hear and listen to things. Such a privilege to able to listen to Archibald sing 🥰

01/03/2025

First set of hearing aids have been fitted!

The past few weeks have had 2x visits to Queensland Children’s hospital. First visit was to see the Hearing Clinic to get moulds taken and paperwork. Plus a visit with the paediatrician with referrals being made for a blood test, MRI and CT scan. We got the blood test done ahile we were there and will wait for results to confirm Connexin 26.

Next visit was to see Hearing Clinic again to get the hearing aids fitted and how to use them. Plus we saw the speech pathologist. Because this was our second time however, speechie just asked if we had any questions and we discussed referrals to Hear and Say.

These hearing aids are the biggest/ strongest ones they have and the purpose is to activate any hearing nerves that might work. Also gives Oliver a chance to get used to having things in his ear!

02/02/2025

A month earthside for mister Oliver and here is where we are at with his hearing journey.

1 week old - newborn hearing screening test done as a routine check in the hospital. This assesses a baby's ability to hear by measuring how their ear and brain respond to sound. 2 fails of this test meant that Oliver got referred to an audiologist.

3 and 4 weeks old - had 3 ABR (Auditory Brainstem Response) tests done. A long, in-depth and meticulous test. Here an audiologist places small earphones in the ears and soft electrodes (small sensor stickers) near the ears and on the forehead. Clicking sounds and tones go through the earphones, and electrodes measure how the hearing nerves and brain respond to the sounds. This test gives an indicator of the threshold of hearing and where the hearing issue is occurring.

5 weeks old - Report concluded that Oliver is profoundly deaf in both ears and that the issue stems from the nerve hairs in the cochlear. This diagnosis is consistent with a Connexin 26 gene mutation however was still sad news to hear. Multiple tests confirmed that results were consistent and did not change with time passing. Further genetic testing will be required to confirm that Connexin 26 is the cause.

6 weeks old - we have now been referred to the Queensland Children’s Hospital (QCH) hearing clinic awaiting appointment for next steps in this process.

Thank you to those that have been praying and checking in on us.

28/01/2025

Hearing Loss Gene - Connexin 26 (Cx26) is a protein that helps maintain potassium levels in the inner ear and also allows nutrients and ions to pass. The proteins are involved in the maturation of cochlea cells. Mutations in the Cx26 gene are the most common cause of nonsyndromic hearing loss.

People with a mutation in one copy of Cx26 are carriers only and will not be affected. If a carrier (Cassandra) has a child with another carrier (Stuart) the child may be affected. We knew that there was a 25% chance that our next child could receive both of the hearing loss gene from us.