The day I told everyone I work with

2nd July 2008: Today was the Family Support Group at Mayfield where I was working as a Deaf Support Worker which is my full time job. Only the day after I told everyone that I’d decided to have the implant and the general consensus was of approval and excitement. A few who know me better than others were worried that I was rushing into it and so were anxious for me. It felt good to tell everyone that I was going to have it, as if by telling everyone I was preventing myself from backing out of the whole thing. However, there were a few children at the group today who have implants, some bilateral and that is the inspiring thing for me - the kick up the bottom to have it done! I think it’s amazing when I see one child I work with who has a unilateral implant making noises which is not much more than a screaming garbled mess but that child can hear themselves and that is leading them to make noise. It’s also amazing to see them listen to a sound and then attempt to replicate it with a good degree of success! I can’t wait to watch them grow up and start speaking and hear sounds. The main reason I have decided to have this implant is because I have a progressive hearing loss (which has been stable for about 10 years) and I have noticed I can’t hear old songs as well as I used to be able to. I can see how well children are doing with implants and would like some of that hearing for myself. By deciding to have an implant I can continue to attempt to keep up the pretence that I’m a hearing person!