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


2 September 2008

14 years of sounds with a cochlear implant...

Even after having my cochlear implant for 14 years now, I still find myself saying “what”? or “what’s the noise?” to a sound I’m unfamiliar with or have heard it before but it sounds different. I sometimes have to say “what?” or “sorry what was that? Sometimes it’s because I’m not concentrating on what people are saying or I just simply miss what someone says. I can sometimes hate it when I can overhear what people say though, like if I’m in the kitchen and they don’t think I can hear but I do…

I love finding out new sounds though, and wondering what they are…
For example, I sit by the window most of the time with my laptop, suddenly there would be a quiet tapping sound against the window. I’m confused because there’s no one at the window and then it dawns on me it’s just the rain!!

Once, I stayed up late one night, as we young ones do!! In my room this summer, I heard a strange sound I’d not heard before, it sounded like a quiet “woooo woooo” I went to bed wondering what it was and the next morning, I woke up and asked my mum what the sound was. She told me it was an owl and it has just moved in the area and it does that noise occasionally. I often spend the night with my window open in summer, in my room, my TV on silent with subtitles to not wake my parents up! This prompts me to hear all these new sounds during the night like crickets chirping, they rain pattering down and thunderstorms!
I love sitting in the garden in the summer reading a book, and as we have a woods behind our back garden there’s always lots of birds singing and even with the faint traffic noise from our road, I just find the world very peaceful and relaxing!

2 comments:

Valerie said...

Wow all I can say is Wow. I am at a year and can't wait to be as excited as you are in my year 14. Thank you for my motivation.

Abbie said...

You are a seasoned pro to the cochlear implant world :) I can definitely take some tips and tricks from you. I'm glad you started up your blog and I am looking forward to getting to know you :)