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


16 August 2008

Sleeping Beauty...

I was reading the Cochlear Kids blog and they have a post about their kids sleeping without their cochlear implants.

I, for one love it! Even since I was born, my parents told me that before they discovered I was partly deaf, I would often be asleep because no noise ever woke me up. Every now and again, they could take me to the local pub in my carrycot and enjoy their drink and I would sleep through the whole buzz of conversation and classic pub songs.

I love how I can sleep through the night without my cochlear implant. It’s nice and peaceful. Nothing like the occasional traffic on the road outside my window or heavy rain to wake me up, I can keep my window open all night much to the envy of my mum! When it does rain (which is nearly most of the time!!?) I love to watch it even without hearing it. I can also watch my TV in bed with subtitles too!

What with my PEG pump, it beeps really loudly when you switch it on, if the pump is on hold and when the feed is finished so I appreciate it that I don’t hear it in the morning when it goes off and my mum turns it off and flushes my PEG with water. It’s a sound that will make you cringe! BEEEEP BEEEEP BEEEEP!!! Thankfully, I'm only on 3 nights now as setting up the pump and the feed is beginning to become a chore, it's so heavy to drag the pump while attached to my PEG up the stairs to my room that I’m surprised I don’t have bigger arm muscles!!!!

Another thing me and family love that I can sleep through anything without my cochlear is when my family use my computer that’s in my room because the tapping of the keyboard or the buzz of the PC doesn’t wake me up. I could literally have a bunch of people in my room talking and I would not know about it which makes some people jealous! There could be plenty of things I wish I could hear but I wouldn’t change the fact that I am profoundly deaf with a cochlear implant for the world!

There is one bad side that I sleep without my cochlear implant on which is I never get up when I would like to. I have a choice between someone waking me up or sleeping in! I would like to be able to get up for an appointment if needs be like when no one is around such as my family are working. I have tried vibrating watch alarms but it doesn’t always wake me up because the vibration isn’t strong enough. I also tried an under the pillow vibrating alarm clock but it was uncomfortable to lay on with normal pillow so now I’m looking for a good portable small vibrating alarm clock which I can now have because I use triangular pillows. If anyone knows where I can get good one for a good UK price from, please let me know!!!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I totally understand. I love being able to take off my hearing aid and completely tune out the world whenever I want to!

Anonymous said...

why dont you invent a kind of vibrating alarm watch or something? you can give my percent for the idea to charity! xx

Www.lozsmedicsljourney.blogspot.co.uk said...

There would be no point... theres already a lot of vibrating watches on the market already. The vibration is just not strong enough to wake me!