So I know I can be stubborn and all those years of being told its an unattractive personality trait …. Alice needs her parents to love her, but now she also needs her parents to do their best for her, all the time and never ever accept 2nd best.

We have now entered the murky world of the NHS. You get an appointment 2 ways in the NHS, either you wait and wait and wait or you make a nuisance of yourself and they give you an appointment to get rid of you, my desk at work is covered with sticky labels, never give us a direct dial, home email or mobile number, we will use it to Alice’s best advantage.

So we reach the day of the all important appointment with Dr Wendy Albuquerque.

Things you should know about St. Georges audiology – everyone is really nice, the hospital is being rebuilt, parking is a nightmare and expensive and finally…. appointments never run on time.

Anyway we finally get into see Dr Wendy. She tests Alice using Visual Reinforcement Audiometry (they play a loud noise and….if you look in the right direction, you see Pooh bear dancing) – Alice likes Pooh, but only responds at moderately to severely deaf levels. Dr Wendy agrees with the dys-synchrony diagnosis and suggests further testing under general anaethestic to confirm. She wants to cautiously manage Alice, so is unsure about hearing aids but agrees to discuss Alice with a colleague at Great Ormond St, Dr Tony Sirimanna and refer Alice up there. So we agree to the tests and go home – confused, she responded better in the tests… but what she hears is useless ?