'The Family Dog' by Susan Dupor
Might as well start here...
It's got to be easier than talking about Aspergers...
I don't mind talking about Firstborn's sudden profound deafness if you don't mind listening...perhaps we'll peel off at some point and be all separatist about it or perhaps he'll start to write about it himself, which would indicate a degree of acceptance he's not quite ready for... (at the moment his idea of British Sign Language is a middle finger brandished uncompromisingly heavenwards - no interpretation needed there is there ?)...
He had scans yesterday and the MRI showed brain abnormalities which are unlikely to be related to his hearing loss and which must be investigated further, which rather puts paid to the idea that prayer works...
Blood tests are not all back from the labs in Cambridge, so we're still all up in the air (apart from the crashing to earth with a bump...I will mix my metaphors).
He can't hear a pin drop, has dreadful tinnitus and has bitten his new hearing aid in half. He's chucking plates at the walls and I don't blame him...
He's doing quite well at lip-reading, but not as well as he thinks he is...because as the deaf community knows too well, he's getting fobbed off with snarls of frustration disguised as smiles of agreement even by us...(well, if you will eat your hearing-aid...)
He is being referred for a cochlear implant...hmmmm, we'll see...
Bang (*mimes 'BANG!*)goes any idea of college and a fresh start in September, his school will try to accommodate him on a part-time timetable...(and on the up-side, this will look better on his record than the imminent exclusion that was looming large)...
There goes his music and his drama for the time being... both being his great loves (I'm hoping that his joy of expression will lead to an eventual acceptance of signing, or am I becoming obsessive about it ?...
Whiteboard markers don't last as long as you'd think... I keep finding the mini-boards we've got around the house emblazoned with messages of support from Sinister, like 'An yr still soo gay badboi haha!'
In short, it's all a bit crap but we've still got our overdeveloped sense of schadenfreude and Mock the Week with subtitles...both healthy coping mechanisms...
We've tried to spoil him with drive-thru McDonald's for the last two days after trips to the hozzie...they've run out of shakes and we've had to park up for twenty minutes while they got our very short short-order sorted...
Bastards !!!
...Billy-no-mates on Facebook of all places !
