‘If I could give her my ears I would’

LORRAINE MURPHY, from Swords, is the mother of a young deaf child who successfully received a cochlear implant two years ago. However, the gift of sound was abruptly taken from her little girl last week when the cochlear implant failed. Here, she tells Northside People readers why her story further highlights the case for bilateral cochlear implants to be carried out in Ireland

I AM the mother of a little girl, Anna, who is three and half years of age. Anna was born profoundly deaf and got the gift of hearing with a cochlear implant almost two years ago.

Since then her progress has been excellent. She can hear me whisper a question to her and answer me. She loves music and dancing and is a real chatterbox. It truly is a life changing invention.

That was until last Sunday week.

Anna’s implant suddenly stopped working. Last week we found out that it has failed. This week she will undergo surgery to remove the failed implant and replace it with a new one.

This leaves her in silence for at least five weeks (recovery time is four weeks post-surgery before the implant can be switched on) and we can’t explain why. She will also have a setback as she has to learn to associate sounds again because the new electrodes will not hit the exact point in the cochlea that the old ones did.

She is lost. She is back to roaming the house looking for me and being quiet and yesterday at play school she was so confused. The best way to describe her is traumatised. She won’t let me out of her sight. I am heartbroken and if I could give her my ears I would.

Here’s the thing: if she had two implants all this trauma would be avoided. And here’s the irony: I am involved in a campaign called

‘Happy New Ear’, calling the Government to fund bilateral implants and this is one of the reasons we have been citing. But I never expected it to land on my doorstep.

A cochlear implant may be life changing, but it is a piece of machinery, and machinery sometimes breaks. We back up our PCs, get replacement cars on insurance policies, yet have no back up for our deaf kids when their cochlear implants break.

It makes no sense. If she lived in the UK and most European countries, she would have her two implants.

If anyone would like to support our campaign, please like the Happy New Ear Facebook page.