Welcome To My Blog...

This blog follows my journey of 2 different cochlear implants and my condition: Multiple mitochondrial DNA deletions I have started this blog 15 yrs too late but ill try my best to fit it all in! I have packed a lot of medical jargon into my life since I was 8.

There has been happiness and tears but I've come through it all with my family and my friends.I'm profoundly deaf as a result of a condition called Multiple mitochondrial DNA deletions or mitochondrial disease RRM2B as my professor Sir Dough Turnbull calls it! I have had since birth but I didn't find out this til I was 19. I have had 2 cochlear implants (at the age of 8 and then i lost the 1st cochlear implant in my right ear after 7 years due to a bad, accruing ear infection (which I couldnt fight off because of my mitochondrial condition) at the age of 15 and had a 2nd one implanted in my left ear that same year which I have now.

My Story


30 July 2008

My 2nd Cochlear Implant



My 2nd operation was shorter than the last. It was November 2000 and I had just finished my mock GCSEs I knew the routine by now when it came to operations, the pre-op appointment and the tests but I never got used to the being put to sleep stage as I’d had so many and I’d hated the cannula needle that they put in your hand to do it. No matter how many operations I had, it got worse. I actually felt fine during this particular operation though because I knew I was going to hear again and I was grateful for the chance.


The hospital was a 3 day stay this time compared to the week I had on the first cochlear implant and I was happy about that because no one likes being in hospital and I was so bored. There wasn’t a lot to do apart from sit around and read a magazine! Mr Raine was also doing this operation on me. I was also pleased that I didn’t have to have my stitches out because he had used dissolvable ones.After a month recovering once again in my silent world, I went back to hospital to get my new external part of the cochlear implant which was a BTE (behind the ear) one. A simple flesh coloured one with a brown coil to match my hair colour. I was quite pleased to have a BTE cochlear implant because with the box one I used to have there was always a risk of catching my wire on something and my BTE one was quite small and petite and out of harms way! I was quite happy with my new cochlear implant and savoured my new sounds! Later on I was given the silver 3G esprit which was even better! I was quite used to the programming now and knew the routine. Being on the adult programme at the cochlear implant centre, I get annual reviews to see how everything is going

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