A week from today...

Finally, I'm on the home run - after all these months, I'm finally a week away from knowing whether I will be accepted for the cochlear implant. As it is, still some time to go before I know what will actually happen but it's the final stage before the yeas or nays. So hopefully at 330pm a week from today, I shall be at the Malta International Airport Check In desk for the Air Malta flight to Manchester, departing at 5pm.

I'm trying to prepare myself mentally for the process. I'm already a bit nervous - finding trouble sleeping well and am petrified that I'll get sick before I go.

L-Istrina

L-Istrina is an annual marathon TV show, which is traditionally held on 26th December. Money is collected through phone calls, SMS messages, online and directly for a variety of good causes. It's one of those programmes that warm the cockles of my heart and make me proud to be Maltese. Last year there were 2 programmes as there was an impromptu programme to collect money for the tsunami victims (incidentally this is a year ago today - sobering thought). Money collected was about Lm1.2 million (which is around $ 3.4 million!) - a very generous figure when you consider we're only 400,000 people. Anyway, through this blog I'd like to ask readers to visit the website at L-Istrina and consider a small donation. A small amount isn't going to break the bank but lots of small amounts make one nice big figure for the institutions that are so much in need. Online donations can take place here.

Merry Christmas!

I took a breather from cooking Christmas Lunch yesterday (turkey with all the trimmings - delicious, for anyone who's interested) to leave a Christmas message for everyone, only for the PC to reboot itself when I was on the point of posting. Was too busy to redo it all over again, so belated Christmas wishes to everyone who reads this, and a Happy New Year full of God's blessings.

Maltagirl sent me a very sweet posting in the Telegraph, article available here, about a girl who heard Christmas carols for the first time. It brought a smile to my face to see it. As a boy I used to love carols - it's to my eternal embarassment that I was the little drummer boy at my school a couple of times (I guess this has evolved to the big drum now as I'm a bit podgy!!) - Christmas is not the same without carols, just like Christmas is not Christmas without the snow (sorry Malta, but it's true!).

Carrot and Artichoke Soup

It's been some time since I put a recipe online so I'm adding one here for one of our favourite soups - carrot and jerusalem artichoke soup. It can't be simpler and it's so tasty.

Ingredients

450g Jerusalem artichokes, scrubbed and roughly chopped

225g carrots, scrubbed and roughly chopped

2 sticks celery

1 large potato, cubed

1 large onion, chopped

chicken stock (or vegetable stock for vegetarians, but chicken tastes better)

Salt and Pepper, to taste

Heat some oil in the pan, add the celery, onion, potato and artichokes, and fry them to give them some colour and to caramelise them (gives them a nice flavour). Cook for about 3-4 minutes, then add the carrots.

Mix the vegetables up, season with salt and pepper and cover with the stock and simmer until all the vegetables are soft.

When the soup is ready, cool it slightly, and liquidise. If it is too thick, add some more stock or water.

To serve, place in a bowl, add some croutons and some creme fraiche on the surface.

How a cochlear implant works

I found an interesting animation of how a cochlear implant works - it's available here.

Accents with a Cochlear Implant

In the CIUG2004 (UK Cochlear Implants Group) Yahoo group there was an email from a lady who has just had her switch on (this is the time when the implant is actually activated). It was interesting to say the least, to read the experiences of someone who has just started off using her cochlear implant. The relevant messages are here, here and here (hope you don't me quoting you, Gill, but someone else might find them interesting!!).

She reported the usual comment that sound is very artificial and electronic, which is eventually starting to stabilise and sound more normal - she said she heard the phone ringing and her dog barking (and her dog's claws clicking on the floor) which I think is quite a development after such a short time. I remember when I first put my hearing aid on and it was so different from what I was used to hearing - it was horrible, very 'Daleky' and robotic and unclear, which eventually developed into what I thought was normal. I went through a similar process last year - when my hearing took a turning for the worse - what was bog-awful then is normal for me now, even though I know it's not.

She also mentioned something interesting, in that when you become deaf you lose your capacity to pick up accents. This is very true, I never thought about it before because I tend to pick up accents from the movement of different people's lips (Northerners in the UK, for instance, tend to say 'coop' rather than 'caep' for cup, Scottish people say 'Scoddish' rather than 'Scottish', and these have very different lip movements). I think that this is where the implant has its strength, its main strength is that it adds the richness of environmental and supportive sound, that most deaf people like myself miss out on. It is like adding colour to one of those old sepia pictures, it really brings them to life. At least I hope so!

Anyway, time is flying, and in 2 weeks 3 days Mandy and I go to Manchester. I guess I got lucky that my appointment is straight after Christmas, because it helps time pass so much faster.

Meeting with Maltese Cochlear Implantees

Mandy and I went to the local Cochlear Implants Association's Christmas Lunch yesterday. Aside from the fact that it was nice to meet new people as it always is, it was a fascinating episode for me as I got to meet people with implants face to face for the first time.

If I had any lingering doubts they would have been extinguished yesterday. I was really encouraged through my conversation with some of the people there, when they described the changes in their life caused by the implant. It is obviously a rocky road on the way to achieving auditory clarity and understanding but I quite feel that it is achievable, with support, assistance and sheer perseverance. I was amazed to see, for instance, a particular adult implantee following a conversation that I was having with her husband, even though he was facing away from her, and the environment was VERY noisy. Maybe she wasn't understanding completely everything but then again I doubt anyone could in all that noise! I was also impressed to see that the child implantees could all speak, maybe with varying degrees of clarity but speech perception as well as enounciation was quite pronounced.

Something else that impressed me was the dedication of the implantees' parents and the amount of work they put into their children, as well as the money spent on them for speech and auditory therapy, as well as for the implant itself. You can understand the commitment and the fierce determination to defend implantation of cochlear implants that these parents have, purely based upon their own perception of the change that it caused to their children. As a father myself I can just imagine how happy and grateful I would feel to have such a lifeline for my child.

Hello Victoria!

Hi Victoria I know you see this blog sometimes so I thought I'd say a special hello just for you.

Love from us 3 including little monster.

My Birthday

It's my birthday today - I'm 34! But I also have flu, so I'm stuck inside. Just my luck. We were planning to go out for the day today and have lunch outside (and to cap it all it's the first time in years that my birthday has been nice weather). Well, I'm going to have some toast instead. I guess it's cheaper :)

I think 2005 hasn't been the best of years for me, so I really am looking forward to 2006!

Christmas

Christmas is in the air! Yesterday I bought a Santa Claus outfit to wear for Christmas Day to give Maria her presents. It looks great but the beard is itchy - I'll also be needing a cushion or two as my tummy isn't big enough to be an adequate Santa Claus! We're looking forward to seeing Maria's Christmas concert, which will be on the 21st. She should be singing some Christmas songs, I am just imagining what it will be like with lots of 2 year olds singing Christmas songs!

I sometimes wonder what next Christmas will bring, if I will be in a position to hear carols again. Christmas isn't the same without the songs and sounds that go with it. I always loved Little Drummer Boy, Away in a Manger, Silent Night - and one of my favourite songs ever is John Lennon's Happy Christmas (War is Over) - a song that always gave me goose-pimples when I heard it, even if it was in mid-July. Haven't heard it for some time so I'm very eager to see if it will at least come out in a rough and ready way should I get the cochlear implant in. By the way, it's my birthday on Thursday :) And it's also the 25th anniversary since John Lennon's death - a terrible day for music when probably the greatest musical genius of the last century was brutally murdered.

From my visitor logs I can see that I have a few visitors who come to this site quite often, even from outside Malta. Do drop a comment, whoever you are, I'm always happy to hear from people, even if it is just a hello.

Hopkins study proves cochlear implants prevent or reverse damage to brain's auditory nerve system

An article has shown that it is possible to reduce or prevent nerve damage in animals when implanted at an early age. This is because the rewiring of the brain's areas for hearing takes place at this particular age and the effects can thus be permanent.

This goes to show that the earlier an implant takes place, the better, possibly putting more pressure on parents to decide whether to implant their child or let nature take its course. As a result the Hopkins team are recommending an implantation as early as possible due to this study.

I think that the implications of this implant are quite profound - some people believe that they should allow a child to grow up and take the decision themselves, rather than having an implant foisted upon them. This is indeed an ethical question - if you do implant, then you are taking away that decision from the person who is affected. If you don't implant, you cause him or her to lose an way to reduce or even overcome the difficulties caused by a hearing loss. So what do I do?

Personally, I don't think there really is a question here. I mean, put it this way, don't parents always take decisions for their child in the first place, anyway? For instance, we have decided to send our daughter to a private or church school rather than a government school - that in itself will have a profound effect on her future. We decided what language to bring her up speaking (her first language is English), what to do with any money she receives on birthdays and Christmas (no, we don't spend them :) ), we decide which doctor she goes to, and when, the list is endless. So why not something that has such an impact on her life? Let's see it from a different angle. I was short sighted as a child. Does that mean that my parents should not have got me spectacles, just so I decide when I'm 18 whether I want to wear spectacles or not? I don't think this argument makes much sense, most parents want the best for their children and I think that most people would implant their children for that very reason, because parental instincts are so strong.