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


14 December 2008

C.I Social gatherings?

I always try and be as outgoing as possible but lately it has got harder for me the last few years as some of my friends no longer live in my town and have moved to get better jobs and lives and experiences...

I find it hard to make new friends sometimes as when I am out on my own or with people I dont't know, I'm as quiet as mouse and don't always speak up When I'm with my family or my best friends who have known me since school, I'm such a chatterbox! I don't understand sometimes why it can be so hard to talk to people I DON'T know the way I can talk to people I DO know! It's so easy for a deaf person to make friends via the internet with MSN & social websites such as facebook and myspace. I've always tried to stay in touch with my deaf side with the deaf community but I find it hard when i only know basic signs and cannot keep up. I find my self more part of the hearing community but would love to have more deaf community in my life should I ever lose my cochlear implant (fingers crossed it wont happen!) and find myself in my deaf world again, i won't find it so lost?


I used to go to social gathering when I was younger just after I got my cochlear implant, we used to go on outings such as trips to theme parks and places like that with a deaf club i used to go to! I don't think they do them anymore...!They used to have christmas do's too with santa giving out presents! I think it's just a plain old pub deaf club now, which is why I dont go anymore... I don't really go to theme parks anymore either as my neck is weak so I cant go on roller coasters but I guess I did all that when I was younger!

I would love to see my cochlear implant centre (YCIS) do social events though to meet other implantees in Yorkshire! The only things we have at the moment at our cochlear implant centre is Workshops such as learning to deal with a busy enviroment which I have already coped with since I was 8. I don't know if it's because of lack of people or no one to organise them but I think it would be great and I have spoke to other people who attend the YCIS who think it would be great to do it too! I know that Katie aka Advanced Bionic Girl! has social gatherings in Derby and I wonder why our centre doesn't do things like that...? It would be great I think just to meet other people and learn their experiences! Althought my ci centre does workshops, I dont think it's an ideal social gathering! I have been suggesting social things to my ci centre for the last few years but nothing has ever come of it...? Maybe once they have the new Listening For Life centre all open in January 2009, they may be able to do more things on the social side? who knows!

I hope I do get to get out to things like that in future because I'm at home a lot and want to start getting out more but I know I can't do too much too quick! As my last posts have shown, I did too much trying to fit everything in when I was at the school christmas fayre. I'm going to try and make the christmas play at the school too! :D But hopefully, gatherings as such will come up! My friends annual group gathering on Christmas Eve will be awesome as friend Kevin says! haha We hope to get a few group pictures! Every time we have a group gathering as such, a group photo is required! It's almost tradition!!

I should be in bed right now! I have to be up early tomorrow to see my nana, aunts uncles & cousins and in a 2 car journey to Middlesbrough. We will also stop off at the cemertry there to lay a christmas weath for my grandad who sadly died on boxing day. RIP Grandad x

No comments: