• New Ear

    October 15, 2009 By in Uncategorized Leave a comment

    I am not normally one to keep up with the times when it comes to gadgets. I made that mistake once, paying thousands and thousands of pounds for a plasma television just before everybody decided LCDs were better and a quarter of the price. Never again I said to myself.

    Mind you, when it comes to little Alice, I would happily bankrupt myself if I thought it would help.

    By a twist of fate – probably partly our fault for pushing so hard to get Alice’s implant date brought forward – about 2 months after her surgery, Cochlear, the makers of Alice’s implant, released their new implant and processor – the dynamically named ‘Nucleus 5’. After 5 years of the original Nucleus 24, Cochlear had refined a lot of the teething problems with the old unit and, most importantly, made it smaller – about half the size in total.

    Alice is ‘entitled’ (I use that word very carefully) to a new processor, funded by the NHS, about every 5 years. 5 years is a long time to wait.

    I had the luck to see and handle one of the new processors last week when Alice was at St. George’s for a new map. Within minutes I was on the phone to Alice’s Mummy saying ‘ we need to find £6,000’. Find it we did – in no small part through the generosity of Papa and Grandma. So in about two weeks time, Alice will have a new, shiny, smaller, better gadget. Nothing but the best. Fortunately, the new processor is fully compatible with Alice’s implant, so no need for more surgery – that would be a step too far.

    Managing to convince Alice’s Mummy to part with £6,000 we don’t have was a little tricky. That said, as soon as I pointed out that it would mean Alice would have a spare speech processor, should Mummy  ever choose to lose it again, she was sold.

    All very exciting

  • World’s worst mummy

    October 5, 2009 By in Uncategorized 3 Comments

    At around 1pm on saturday I was officially awarded the title. 

    Alice’s implant was missing, on my watch. A simple trip to take Joseph and his friend to a party ended with tears. All three children were strapped into the car and I checked Alice’s ear before we left.  5 minutes later she was saying ear and pointing and I thought she must have taken it off, something that she does in the car.  Joseph and his friend safely inside I started the frantic search.  If you ever need to know where raisins can be hidden in a car seat or a landrover I can now tell you.  Short of tearing the carpets out I looked everywhere.  Alice was strip searched and dear friends helped me to look (a huge thank you to them x). 

    So there I was, in Tolworth, without her ear, Alice was in tears (mainly from being hungry and needing the loo), I was in tears and there was no implant to be found.  2 phone calls later (one to Chris who was of course rational) and one to my mum, who bless her couldn’t understand a word and thought I’d crashed the car. She came to find me 10 mins later. Chris’s theory was “if you’ve searched the car and it’s not in there, it’s not in there”… rationality doesn’t come into it, when you are thinking about how many days Alice will be deaf, without her ear and feeling sick to the stomach at the awfulness.  Joseph, bless him, when told said ” well you’ll just have to find it mummy”.  So Mum, my step dad, Tony and Alice all drive home, I search the car, the car park, my purse and my mind and decide to look at home.  On reaching the drive, mum phones to say, they’ve found it.  On the drive, next to where the car was parked, I must have knocked it, whilst putting her into the car.

    All this serves to make us realise the fragility of Alice’s hearing.  Of course a very short time without her ear will not change her outcome, but to have come so far and then lose momentum, was too much to bear.  Only those that have been on the journey will understand the level of fear.  Still, at least I didn’t drive over it.  Since surgery, it’s the first time, I have wished that she had bilaterals.