It was late one night, whispering to her in the bedroom she
shares with her sister, asking her to move up, or roll over or some such, when she suddenly turned and looked at me with wild eyes, as if she’d not known I
was there, that I realised it.
She’d not known I was there. She’d not heard my voice. She
was deaf.
Our pediatrician recommended an audiologist but I went
straight to an ENT. Confirmation: radically deaf in both ears.
It’s probably only been a few months, I’m not allowing a
blanket excuse for some of the behaviour we’ve suffered through this year, but
a deaf little girl is not a happy little girl and I was relieved by the surge
of tenderness which welled within me. My poor baby.
So last week, sandwiched between her sister turning 6 and an
epic unicorn birthday party to celebrate this great milestone, we woke
frightfully early in the morning and stumbled off to Claremont Hospital.
She was a star. She didn’t ask for breakfast, she didn’t
protest or complain. She gave the nurses a special smile she’d prepared for the
occasion (she has a selection of smiles in her repertoire – one for me, one for
family, one for friendly car guards etc – all different), she watched wide-eyed
as the younger patients returned from theatre in tears, and when it was her
turn she lay, ever so small in her big hospital bed, as a friendly porter
wheeled her through the halls, and gently succumbed to the anaesthetic. The
only sign of her apprehension a raptor-like grip on my finger; so that even
once the rest of her was floppy and limp I had to prise my hand away.
Grommets in, adenoids out.
I lay next to her as she slowly floated to the surface back
in the children’s ward. A nurse was talking to the young boy in the furthermost
bed from ours, offering him a selection of treats from the hospital menu.
Sunday’s eyelids fluttered, she raised her head a little to
look at me and croaked, ‘Mum, did she say jelly?’
She had. I ordered some for my little hero and a while later
we trundled home.
‘I can hear Mum, I can really, really hear.’
I’ve not heard anything sweeter for a long time.
