GOSH appt 11/11/14

Here we go again. After a few months or so, I think this actually has to be the longest gap I’ve had for a while were i’ve had no hospital apppointments, as my last one would now have been august so about 3 months ago now. Which is partly due to me having to cancel my audiology appointment due to illness . But today I was finally getting back into the routine of hospital appointments, as today I was attending an appointment at GOSH for maxilliofacial and dental with Mr Gill.

 

The last GOSH appointment I had was 3 months ago now in August. I didn’t actually see Mr Gill at that appointment for whatever reason he wasn’t around so instead I saw Tom one of the registrars instead.So I was looking forward to seeing him , I guess because im so used to having him doing all of my orthodontic work now that it kinda seems strange not to see him. So yeah I think the last time I saw him was June/July time the appointment before my braces were removed.

 

Anyway today I’m just going up there to see Mr Gill for my 3 month retainer review Also I’m going up today as I’ve got to have medical illustration pictures taken of my face,teeth and Jaw.I’m also assuming whilst I’m at GOSH seeing Mr Gill today that we will be having that chat about surgery and how we move forward and where we go from here, but who knows all shall be revealed later.

 

OK so today’s appointment was a very quick one ,we didn’t have any of our usual little chit-chat ,although I must admit it was very busy in maxilliofacial and dental so I was surprised I got seen so early in honesty.I was actually seen early today and think I must have been called through at about 10 to 12 , so 10 minutes or so earlier, as it was 2 minutes to 12 when I came out from the maxilliofacial and dental department.

 

Anyway yeah went in, dumped myself, got on the chair as usual.Mr Gill had a student with him today which was fine by me ,anyway not that ,that really means anything so getting back on track. Mr Gill said that my teeth are looking straight and asked how I’ve been getting on with them and with the retainers, which I think I’m doing well with everything no problems really to be honest.Then asked if I’m happy with my teeth which I certainly am (hint of another blog soon)

 

I was then laid back on the dental chair and Mr Gill had a quick, and by quick , I mean very quick look.Then sat me back up as he was happy with everything , and asked whether I had my retainers with me which I did as had a feeling I may need them.So the dental nurse passed me my bag and I took them out and handed them over.Mr Gill then laid me back on the chair for a second time and then put my bottom retainer in and out , and then did the same with the top one too.

 

Mr Gill ended up having to take impressions/Molds of my bottom teeth again to make a new bottom retainers , as my current bottom retainer has cracked and he said although it is OK still to use and wear if it was left until my next appointment , by that point it would be broken and I’d end up trying to get in as an emergency appointment. So yeah my favorite pink Plasticine jelly stuff going everywhere 😉 It’s cool I honestly don’t mind really.Plus I got to be used as a teaching thing for his student , as she has only done retainer molds with the patient sitting up , So Mr Gill was explaining to her it’s better to have patient laying down with head as far back as possible , as stops the gagging issues and also opens up the airway more , and makes the tongue stay back etc.

 

Mr Gill then sat me back up and said that he is happy with everything and said that he will post my new bottom retainer out to me and that it should be here within the next 2 weeks if not to ring back up to let  them know.In honesty I had expected to be told I would have to go back later in the day to collect it.Mr Gill then said that he wanted some photos of me today and did I have time to go to have them taken. Which I was happy to do , so he said he will see me in 6 months time for my 6 month review and take things from there really.

 

Medical illustration has now moved and is now on the main entrance floor , so the same floor as the maxilliofacial and dental , which was kind of hand dandy 🙂 .I was told it is now in the SouthWold Building and that I would be given directions by the receptionist , but hey I’m just too good for them I found it straight away myself 😉 see they can try moving things around but I know my GOSH 😉

 

To be honest Medical illustration is a lot smaller now than it used to be , it’s literally a small area and so easy to walk past, but anyway yeah there’s may 10 chairs, a small reception an then the big double doors of the photo studio, but it’s cool its practical for what its there for.Anyway I had to wait a few minutes but it wasn’t that long a wait really , was just 2 little boys before me.

 

The dental medical illustrations never change, same as,even from all those years ago I remember clearly and they never change :). So was just the usual fun really of an ice lolly stick placed length ways and photos taken like that, clip things hooked on either side of the mouth and pulling as hard as you physically can, clip and mirror in mouth, head shots of normal relaxed face, biting down and big smiling.

 

The only thing I did really notice today that I don’t think I’ve ever really picked up on with medical illustration was that I noticed actually how small my mouth/jaw is , as both myself and the photographer had trouble with maneuvering the mirror and clips both together ,as well as both clips pulling the right .As there literally wasn’t much room at all , especially so with the clip and mirror and then having to try to open my mouth as wide as possible (not possible) .We even tried using the smaller side of the mirror and still had the same issues.Mr Gill had wanted pictures of my back teeth too but it wasn’t physically possible so we had to give up on those and just take the pics as best we could.So yeah have to update Mr Gill on that at the next appointment so that he knows they hadn’t just missed the pictures out purposely , there was just nothing we could do to get those images.

 

I then decided seeing as I hadn’t eaten and it was nearly 1 pm as I never eat before any of my dental or maxilliofacial and dental appointments, so I decided to treat myself to a spot of lunch in the GOSH Lagoon restaurant and treat myself to a Pink GOSH hoodie and charity band 🙂

 

 

How cool are these Peter Pan cups though?!! seriously I was in love with the cup , hence the picture .I promise I don’t usually take random photos of my lunch LOL , just thought the cup was cute with the GOSH colour , peter pan picture and quote “Second star on the right straight on until Morning” written on the other side along with how J.M Barry gave Peter Pan to GOSH etc.Just thought it really added to the GOSH magic.

GOSH Appointment.

So today I was heading up to Great Ormond Street Hospital as I had an appointment with my amazing consultant Neil Bulstrode who I couldn’t wait to go and see because well for those of you who are subscribed to my blog or are regular readers,know me personally you’ll know that I refer to Neil Bulstrode as amazing as well as a lot of other good names because of how amazing he actually is and he was the man who gave me my second ear so he means a lot to me not just because he had reconstructed my ear but just in general his personality, the way he deals with the questions he’s faced everything I just honestly completely adore that man

 

Anyway back onto the subject although didn’t really drift too far off it this time unlike usual 🙂 this appointment was to check my new ear was still healing as it was supposed to be as it was regularly monitored by Neil Bulstrode which I always liked the fact that he kept an eye on it a lot but the appointment wasn’t only to check how my ear was healing and to update my medical records with pictures of my ear now that the swelling had gone down completely but it was also to talk about another operation that he could do for me known as a Coleman Fat Transfer ,Which Mr Bulstrode explained would help to even out the right side of my face ,for those of you who don’t already know the right side of my face is affected by another medical condition known as Hemifacial Microsomia which causes curving of one side of the face and it is more noticeable in the jaw, and chin as these are natural curves of the face and so it makes it look worse and the right side of my face had been left a lot flatter than my left side was and so this operation would mean I would have liposuction to take fat from my belly as using fats and anything else from your body is better as it means your body has a lower percentage of rejection and the fat would then be grinded down to the fat cells and then injected into the right side of my face and a high percentage of the fat would stay for the rest of my life so I agreed to having this operation done as I thought it would be a good idea to get it done as it would help my face to look better and more normal and hopefully stop some of the stares I got when I was walking around and so yeah me and dad were then given the date for my pre op appointment for a few months time which I was quite excited about and I was happy to go ahead with the surgery as I knew I was going to be in the best hands possible with Neil Bulstrode doing the operation for me although I was told I need to put a little bit of weight on as I don’t currently have enough and he needs enough to do it with but other than that all went really well 🙂

Fake Boyfriend …

Ok so a lot of you will now know about my bullying experiences  but this one was a little unusual and well I don’t know if you’d class it as bullying or just nastiness or what really so I’ll leave it up to you to decided what you would class this as so yeah comment it to me , leave a message on my Facebook page or tweet it to me or however else and yeah I look forward to hearing what you would class this as 🙂

Towards the end of year 8 one of the boys in my year (wasn’t in my class though) started being really nice to me and acting just generally really friendly towards me which was actually really sweet and I didn’t think anything of it in all honesty I mean nothing wrong with a boy being friendly to you is there ? And yeah things went on from there really just being really friendly to me in school , talking to , actually standing up for me at times when he was walking along talking to me in the corridors and someone made a comment and just generally being nice and I never doubt anyone because obviously everyone needs someone in their life who is going to be nice to them and yeah this then soon progressed into him seeing me walking home from school one day on my own and he came running across the field calling after me so I stopped and looked round to see who was calling me and where it was coming from and that general kind of thing when someone unexpectedly calls after you and yeah he walked the rest of the way home with me which for him wasn’t far as he lives just round the corner from the field and yeah I thought that was really sweet and really nice of him to want to talk to me on the way home from school so it wasn’t as though it was an act to show off in school or anything like that .From that day onward this boy was walking home with me most days although we never arranged a meeting place to meet up before walking home it was a case of we would walk home and if he saw me he’d come over and walk home with me and again I still thought nothing of this he was just being your average friend doing what friends do  for each other although I couldn’t understand why now this had started  as I’d known him a while although I just put this down to him being in more classes this year with me and I don’t know really but I was really liking it a lot .One night walking home he asked me something which I didn’t ever expect which was would I go out with him which I was like erm what ? as I thought I’d misheard so he asked me again and I was like erm well yeah I guess so and so yeah we were now boyfriend and girlfriend which I’d never actually expected to happen and we exchanged numbers and all the rest of it and well it was sweet and still no issues and things were good we’d occasionally hold hands walking home from school , talk in school and that kind of thing so not much had changed really and things were finally going well which I was pleased about more pleased in fact I’d found someone who I honestly believed liked me and now loved me for who I was and that meant a lot but sadly(sorry guys have to do this to you unfortunately)

 

Obviously our year group knew I was in a relationship with this boy and so when I had people texting me and hearing rumors of him being with one of the other girls in our year group I didn’t believe it as he was with me and he wouldn’t just do that to me would he ? which I asked him and he denied it so there we go I had the answer he wasn’t with this other girl and so we could now carry on being happy together that was until the rumors started getting stronger and I noticed he wasn’t walking home with me as much now and he was talking to this girl a lot more and so I text him again asking and if it was true was he in a relationship with the other girl and he text back saying why? why did I want to know ? and that sort of thing that went backwards and forward for a little bit until he confessed yes he was in a relationship with the other girl who completely broke me I couldn’t believe this had happened and I was just so annoyed at him for this I mean did she know about this? and I was honestly well and truly heart-broken and I hated the girl too now for this as would any girl who had her man stolen .I soon realized a few months later it wasn’t her fault although I did stop talking to her until her an the boy broke up

 

It was only a while later it came to light that actually he never did like me as a friend or as a girlfriend or anything else and that it was actually a whole massive joke and set up which everyone in our year group was in on all expect for me obviously and I couldn’t believe no one had come and told me this or tried to explain this to me just nothing until I was told a few months later and I found out my parents had also known about it and just didn’t know if I knew or not but they did and it was awful and it would have been so much more awful if my parents had of told me at the time because I would have in all honesty not have believed it but I was devastated by it .Looking back at it now maybe I would have found it funny and been able to laugh along with everyone on it had I not being going through what I was at the time and I guess I was clinging onto the hope that someone would actually like me that I didn’t even think when it did happen and would things have been different if he knew what was going on at home and the fact he had now added to my problems ?

Rib Graft Stage 2 Pre Op

So the second from biggest day had arrived and I knew now this was the start to finishing my new ear and now I was not really all that far from reaching my new fully complete ear which I was excited about but obviously I knew today had to happen first 🙂

 

As always I was excited to be having the whole day off from school and to be heading off to London to go to the magical Great Ormond Street Hospital and getting my second stage of rib graft all finalized so I could be given the go ahead and so I could get my operation date and know all the forms and paperwork and anything else they needed was done and out-of-the-way on the morning of my operation

 

Me and dad headed down to Dinosaur ward and we were greeted by an extremely friendly and familiar face Gaynor who was going to be doing my pre op like she had last time .It was nice to see Gaynor again and catch up on everything especially as she hadn’t seen my ear since I had left Great Ormond Street Hospital after the first stage so we sat catching for a bit about that and how things were going with my ear which was really nice and I thought it was quite sweet that she had an interest in my ear and knowing how I was doing .Before doing all the usual paperwork and talking through what would happen and then me and dad signing to say that we give our consent to it all and are happy for it all to go ahead and that Gaynor had talked through what would happen on the day and what ward I’d be on etc and then doing my height and weight which was all normal 🙂 and yeah everything went really well again today as usual and as usual I went home very happy and ready for my operation date to come through I really couldn’t wait to be going back in to get the second stage done no hesitation what so ever 🙂

 

 

GOSH appointment ..

Well today I was getting the day off school which is always a really good thing 🙂 and was heading back up to see my amazing consultant and surgeon Neil Bulstrode at Great Ormond Street Hospital to see if he could give the all clear for stage 2 of my rib graft operation to complete my new ear which I really hoped I would be given the go ahead for it and have the finished product of my ear and look forward to loving it even more than I already did at the time and feeling more normal in myself I suppose and hopefully after this operation I wouldn’t be bullied any more I mean ok not a lot of the bullying was now directed around my ear it was now more my hair colour, family and the way I am as a person but it did still crop up every so often and it would hurt more than words can describe when someone turned round and said lets see your new ear it looked well ugly before or why was your ear so ugly or some other comment about I’d never and still to this day never have considered my little ear to have been ugly or horrible or anything other than something that made me ,me and was unique and special to me even now it had been changed I loved having a normal looking ear and I can’t wait for the day when others with consider me normal and expect me as they don’t expect me for who I am and I really doubt they ever will

As always I looked forward going up to the one and only most amazing hospital ever Great Ormond Street Hospital and awoke a lot earlier than I probably ever needed to so I could start the day and start the journey up to Great Ormond Street to see Neil Bulstrode and find out what the verdict was on how long I would have to wait for stage 2 with the skin graft being used in this stage to give my ear more definition and the flap that normal ears have as always I had my book and iPod with me to travel up to London with dad 🙂

The appointment with Neil Bulstrode went well and I was told I was now going to be having stage 2 done in February 2007  also whilst I was there Neil Bulstrode checked over how my new ear was doing which he said was doing well which always was great news to hear and checked my ribs to make sure they were healing well before getting me to see someone else who also checked my ribs over and gave us some questionnaires to fill in about my experiences and how I felt before having my ear reconstructed and how I felt now I’d had it reconstructed before being sent home to wait for my pre op appointment to come through and dad had a very excited and happy me to take home today which is usually what happens after going to see Neil Bulstrode or going to Great Ormond Street anyway

Year 8 Bullying..

Not only did I have a new diagnosis of another medical condition going on and trying to control it on my own as I was embarrassed by the condition and I didn’t want it to be seen as a weakness by others in my class but yet again I was experiencing  the wonderful joys of bullying because bullies just seemed to love me

Anyway yeah the bullying now had got a lot worse from when I was in junior school with silly little comments which really looking back now weren’t all that offensive or hurtful but obviously were at the time and things had gotten worse since last year in secondary school as I had been bullied but it wasn’t like serious bullying just stupid little things and boys trying to get me into trouble with the teachers and our head of year especially and you know yeah but this year in year 8 obviously we had now been at secondary school for a whole year and were just in our second year now so everyone knew each other more and had gotten to know one another better and friendship groups were starting to form which all sounds great and it was for the others but not so much for me in all honesty as Ok I did have some new friends such as Shelby,Cherie , Jade and Emily  but that was pretty much all I had obviously I had Daniel and Emma as well but compared to the other children in my year this was nothing and so I became yet again the victim of bullying because of how shy and quiet I was as I preferred to keep myself to myself and just get on with school and get home as soon as possible after school and I admit I did use my work as a distraction thinking oh if I concentrate more on my work not that I wasn’t concentrating a lot anyway as with my hearing I did find it hard to always hear what the teacher was saying or things in videos we were watching  so I was a victim of bullying for the fact that I actually concentrated on work and hadn’t had any detentions so far so began silly name calling like teachers pet,boffin, nerd, geek , swotty potty and so on which was quite hurtful and hard for me to hear and deal with because they didn’t know what was really going on in my life or the first thing about me and yet they thought they had the right to judge me on what they really had no idea on which killed me deep down although I tried not to let these silly things get to me because I mean what was the point ? and so the more the bullying increased the more effort I put into my work to use it as an escape or a distraction from the bullying which did work in class but as soon as I got home everything fell apart and I couldn’t cope with it and I let my real emotions out but unfortunately in the wrong way by taking it out on my parents and those closest to me and I would get myself in a right state over homework writing pages and pages and pages just to try to keep the bullying away as I thought by doing this I wouldn’t need to worry about the bullies and it would take my mind of things which it did and it didn’t .It did in the fact that when I was in class I just completely zoned out and my work and getting home was my only priority but it didn’t work as I didn’t speak up about what was going on or do anything about the fact they were making these nasty comments and I allowed them to walk all over me and it didn’t work because as soon as I got home my wall crumbled away and the real hurt ,frustrated,angry, upset, confused me came out

 

Sadly things got worse than this as I then began receiving comments from the boys in my class about my family which killed me to hear them saying awful things about my parents and how they should have aborted me and what sort of parents would want me , how my parents never wanted me , how they didn’t love me ,how they hated me and what I had brought on them in life, (this actually makes me feel quite emotional just writing this) I then started being called names such as the  black sheep  of my family which means an outsider the one who is different in a way that others disapprove of or find odd and can be someone who has been shunned by others or chooses to be an outsider by their actions and is a disgrace  and this boy who started all these awful comments also turned round and called my mum and dad awful names that I can’t ever bare to think of and decided to go and tell my head of year and the other boys in our tutor that my dad and I were growing weed(cannabis) in our garden and how I was drug dealing .Which I ended up getting called out of class by my head of year who said how there had been rumors about it  and was it true which obviously no it wasn’t true at all so he then asked why they were saying things like that and where they had got it from which I really have no idea because it couldn’t have been any further from the truth .I only ever told my mum and dad about the growing drugs and being a drug dealer comment , the black sheep and a few of the comments about them but I could never bring myself to tell them everything that had been said about them purely  because it killed me and hurt me so much there really no words or way of telling them .Sadly this same boy still wanted to make my life a misery and as awful as he could so he didn’t stop there

 

One English lesson  we had a trainee teacher as well as our normal teacher and TA in the class room so three members of staff in the room which I felt safer knowing as the boy was put on the same table as I was for the lesson as we had been split into small groups and some how god knows how I ended up with him in the same group which I couldn’t believe as I knew exactly what he would do and he did he sat there most of the lesson trying to wind me up and making nasty comments about me and too me and the others on the table seemed to find this funny which was no help at all what so ever and I said something back to him as he was just getting to me too much and I know I would lose it and end up walking out of the class if he gave me any more hassle what annoyed me more was the fact the trainee teacher knew he was purposely   winding me up and making these comments as she over heard a few and how fed up I looked and every so often came up to me to ask if I was ok and if he was giving me any problems which he instantly tried to do the whole cheeky chappy what me think and as soon as she walked off he said something else and he said something which I can’t remember what the comment was  but it then led onto another comment about my hair colour being ginger and next  thing I knew he’d got up from his seat and walked round behind me and put a lighter to my hair like fully light and out of the corner of my eye I could see the flame from the lighter I didn’t know what to do all the others on the same table as us were just rolling around laughing at this whilst I was sat there thinking to myself just sit still don’t move your head don’t move an inch don’t do a thing which thankfully I didn’t ,I was so grateful when the trainee teacher came over as he quickly took the lighter away from my hair and put it away  and I was just hoping and praying the whole time he had that lighter to my hair that someone anyone would see and say something but nothing what annoyed me more was the fact that none of the teachers saw anything happen and some how he got sent out of the room shortly after it had happened and I must have looked so frightened as the trainee teacher asked again was I ok and what had happened so I said how he had his lighter out but never said anything about him putting it to my hair and the others on the table said that I was lying which didn’t help at all the one time I really needed someone to have sat there and backed me up but no nothing which killed me .However seeing as nothing had been done I knew I had to do something about it as I didn’t want him to do it again to me or someone else I mean what if next time he really did set my hair alight ? So I got up the courage to go to the staff room and knocked on the door and ask for my tutor and in basic form told her some of the comments that had been said and about the lighter and she said she would speak to him later and sort it out for me before heading back in the staff room .Nothing was done

 

 

I got home from school that night and as soon as I walked in the front door and saw my mum I just burst into tears where I had bottled it up all day and been so worried throughout all my other lessons about what if it happened again as I had other lessons with him and he was in my tutor group and told my mum everything and she got straight on the phone to my head of year about it I was glad I told her as I was so frightened that day and in all honest I’ve never been anywhere near as frightened as what I was that day #

 

The next day at school was awkward as I had to go and write a statement against him saying what had happened and he had been asked to go into school later by our head of year as he wanted to speak with him but it was awkward and hard because :

 

A)I’d never had to write a statement against one of my bullies before

b) I knew my statement would be taken into consideration of what happened to him

c) He walked in through the office whilst I was sitting with the receptionist talking through what happened whilst she typed the statement up

 

The rest of the day was so awkward just walking around school knowing I’d made a statement against him which I knew really was a good think but at the same time it wasn’t if he and when he found out that I had done this and I just worried about how he would take it ? , how would he react? , would he do something to me ? what was going to happen if he found ?, what would be said to him , would he get his friends on me ? .It was a very long day of waiting for the result and the school trying to keep him away from me as much as possible but when I got home that evening my mum received a phone call from my head of year saying he had been suspended for what he had said and done to me along with a few other issues which had happened and it felt good knowing I was a part of him being suspended from school knowing I helped that decision be made over him .It was one of the best feelings I’ve ever had and he wasn’t allowed back into school he had to go to park-side which was a school for the naughty kids or kids who couldn’t cope in school for whatever reason but mostly because they had been kicked out of school so yeah it was nice knowing I shouldn’t be seeing him in school any more but this didn’t mean the bullying was over it was far from it and so where the problems I was going to face later on …..

 

My year 8 Tutor group

 

 

 

Me,Danielle,Hope and Lauren (only wanted me in this pic to make them look better they didn’t actually like me)

 

 

 

me in year 8

 

 

Turning 11…

Well today I was turning yet another year older and would now be turning 11 and although after last year I decided I wasn’t going to have a party or anything my mum and dad decided to let me have one last birthday party this year as they said (there words not mine) how much I’d gone through lately what with my rib graft stage 1 operation and the week in hospital , the bullying previous to that and after that and so yeah today I was going to be having a small bowling party as I decided not to invite too many friends as I only wanted my proper friends to be there so I had invited a lot fewer people than what I had to my 10th birthday party last year and I was looking forward to seeing all my friends and just generally being able to kick back ,relax and enjoy my day with my friends which ok I relaxed a lot anyway but still 🙂

 

I knew I still had to take things careful as I was still not really supposed to be doing a lot of sport so I had to take it easier at my party and instead of bowling normally had to use the ramp and  bumpers just so that there was no way of me causing myself any damage or injuries and I was so glad that my friends were so understanding about it and patient when we had to keep moving the ramp backwards and forwards and lining it up with the bowling lane and stuff  and I had such a fab time mucking around with all my friends like nothing bad had happened at all with not a care in the world things were good things these pictures will explain all :

 

Jenna, Emma Buck and Me

 

 

 

 

Because we make Beach ball hats fashionable

 

 

Making a Birthday wish

 

 

 

All of us

 

 

To me this was a pretty special birthday with so many memories of my new ear , good friends, having a great time being an 11 year old and actually it was nice to do this and get away from the bullying and it was nice to be able to forget about all of the bad times (the piglet top I’m wearing my sister bought me for my birthday as I loved it so much) .I always love looking back at these pictures purely because of the amazing memories behind each one of them 🙂

The Debate ..

So lets face it in all honest my secondary school could be a pain in the bum a lot of the time guess like any school or work place and well this blog is about to explain to you just one of the reasons why my secondary school was a pain in the bum on just one occasion although pretty sure you’ll be reading more blogs about how much of a pain my secondary school was later in the blogs 🙂

 

Anyway yeah for those of you who are regular readers you’ll know that I had my right ear affected by Microtia reconstructed towards the end of year 6 (junior school) due to getting really badly bullied about it and constantly receiving nasty stares and questions about it all the time and the fact that every day I went into school the bullying got worse anyway yeah getting back onto topic although I’m not too far from the topic but anyway 🙂

 

My secondary school had a  specialism in performing arts meaning that it has a really good music department as you know drama,dance,music etc are all rolled into performing arts so yeah we had a pretty neat music department so this meant our music lessons were really good for half a term we would be using and learning to play a variety of instruments such as drums , piano,keyboard, electric guitar, acoustic guitar and so on but for the other half of  the term we would be in another room in the music block using apple mac computers and using programmes such as garage band and logic and creating music that way now to do this we had to wear the big music headphones that you they use n like recording studios and stuff but due to me not long ago having my ear reconstructed this wasn’t possible in case of causing any damage to my ear which in all honesty my music teacher was pretty good about and allowed me not to use the headphones and for me to have the sound playing out through the computer which was great as it was a big help to me to be able to do it this way .However the issue started once my ear had fully healed as I was then made to wear the big headphones which doesn’t sound too bad really does it ? but the issue was when I was using them I had no idea where the sound was coming from which your probably thinking well duh the computer but my directional hearing wasn’t great and it was especially hard to hear anything but the music let alone if the fire alarm went off or anything  or the more common the person I was working with was talking to me and I was completely oblivious or again oblivious to my music teacher trying to get the classes attention to talk to us I had no clue what was going on .I even sometimes found myself once the lesson had finished still sitting at the computers working as I hadn’t heard the bell go or our teacher dismiss us let alone hearing the stampede as the rest of the class left the room with me not even twitching or knowing until a whole new class came walking in and a different teacher came in an someone ended up tapping me as I was in their seat but sometimes I was still sat there at home time as we always had music last lesson and my friend Daniel who I walked home from school with came looking for me or one of the music technicians came to lock up the music block and found me sitting there ,So obviously it wasn’t  a very good idea for me to be using these headphones as I was oblivious to anything and everything going on around me .I just wish really looking back at it that the school had something in place I don’t know what but obviously the school knew about me being hard of hearing and I just wish they could have done something or had something in place so that if I didn’t hear something going on around me not that I ever that they could do something or there could be a way of me knowing whether it be a signal such as I don’t the teacher coming into my view and tapping her foot three times or something mean I always think what if an emergency like a fire did actually happen ? would anyone bother to alert me ?  and yeah I can’t lie and say it wasn’t something that never played on my mind because it always did .I have no idea why the teacher didn’t even think to let me know when the lesson had ended

 

I’m not sure if the school said anything to my parents but obviously they always brought this kind of thing up at parents evenings and things and at one of the parents evenings mum out of blue as I hadn’t told her how often it happened although some times did tell her when it happened and stuff but my mum decided enough was enough and something needed to be done about the fact I couldn’t hear anything else with the headphones on and so the debate began with my mum and dad trying to get the school to allow me not to wear the headphones whilst the school were adamant I had no choice but to wear them otherwise wouldn’t be allowed to do the lesson and it would affect my attendance as I should be in the lesson and stuff which my mum and dad hadn’t mentioned anything about taking me out of the lesson just finding an alternative to using the headphones nothing else but well it did turn into a good old debate  my parents V the school

 

Eventually after a while of the debate going on they gave in and allowed me to have the music playing out of the computer rather than listening to it through the headphones as the headphones were just a pain in the bum themselves to be honest .In all honesty throughout all of this it didn’t make me regret the hearing I have or feel bad about it or anything because it’s the way I am and the way I was born nothing can help that and really the school should have been prepared to adapt and make changes like they would if I don’t know such as  if they had a disabled student they would have to adapt and maybe add wheelchair ramps etc around the school to make it easier for them to get around so why couldn’t the school make a few simple little changes for me with my hearing it wasn’t like it would cost the school anything

The France Trip ..

One of the first  trips we were offered in year 7 was a day trip to Boulogne , France  where we would get to visit a sweet factory ,Citie Europe ,and one of the french markets which sounded like great fun and I really wanted to go as things so far had gone really well in my first year at secondary school minus the odd comment or two but hey I just turned a blind eye and ignored them it wasn’t anything too bad anyway besides  I was loving french lessons which my class tutor taught me for and I really liked the whole idea of getting to go to France we never ever ever ever did trips like this at junior school the only sort of trips we ever did were trips to museums, zoos , residential etc and just boring day coach trips in the same country everyone was really excited about this trip and hey I was looking forward to this trip

 

The next few days leading up to the trip a few of the boys in my class thought it would be funny to start picking on me yupp I guess you really could call this strike 3 of bullying again oh the joys seems like I can’t ever escape the grasp of the bullies clearly ,Anyway yeah it started off with one boy just being stupid and thinking it was funny to try to wind me up one evening in tutor just before we took the last register for the day and went home he was obviously bored or something and wanted something to and how lucky for me I was the victim of his stupidity and ignorant comments it started off silly little things that I just blanked and ignored because after all it wasn’t too offensive or anything and it was just a boy being silly .However the next day at school in registration the exact same thing happened and so on right up until the day before when it wasn’t just him but a little group of the boys now decided it was funny to join in this time saying how they were planning on throwing me over board of the ferry and how funny it would be and keep telling me over and over and over that tomorrow morning when we got on the ferry they would throw me over the side of the ferry and would all stand there laughing as they threw me over the edge .I tried so hard to ignore it and just think you know it’s boys being boys but that night when I went to bed I couldn’t help but keep worrying and thinking although it was just boys being boys what if they really meant it ? what if they really did throw me over ? then what ? because I mean it’s not like you don’t hear of these sorts of things happening  and so I lay awake most of the night worrying about it tossing and turning .I hadn’t had much sleep when dad came awoke me early in the morning so I could start getting ready I played all the old tricks in the book as I had made my mind up this was it I wasn’t going and that I’d rather go to school instead as I knew the boys who had said that were all going on the trip so hey the problem would be resolved right if I dropped out ? but nope dad eventually got me up and knew something was up but still I didn’t want to say anything because what if nothing did actually happen ? In the end I acted like all was fine and as soon as we pulled up outside the school I burst into tears and refused to get out the car so dad ended up driving the car round the car park a good 5-10 times  keep asking me what was wrong but I wouldn’t tell him I didn’t want to worry him and he also kept asking if I was going or not as he needed to know but the thing was I didn’t know if I wanted to go or not mean I wanted to go as the trip sounded like great fun and I knew mum and dad had already paid all the money for it and if I did drop out they wouldn’t get that money back .However at the same time I didn’t want to go as what if it did happen ? what if I never made it home tonight? so I eventually confessed all to dad and he took me up to my tutor in fits of tears and told her what happened and she said how the boys were already on the coach and I wasn’t going to be in the same groups for the day as they were and how no one was going to be going on the top deck and that I could sit with her on the ferry and she would deal with the boys later but in all honesty I don’t think she ever did  but anyway she let the teacher who was with the group I was put in know in case anything happened

 

I hated the fact that dad took me up to my teacher in fits of tears blubbing in front her and the rest of my year group and everyone staring at me really didn’t help make me feel any better at all even when I was on the coach and everyone kept staring at me going why are you crying and things I didn’t want them to know it was nothing to do with them and besides how did I know they weren’t going to go and tell the boys what I’d said and that they wouldn’t then react and do something to me whilst we were in France ?I felt so awful the whole way to the ferry knowing this was the bit I didn’t want to have to do and thinking about what the other kids in my year group must have thought about me turning up crying like a baby

 

Once on the ferry I went to find my tutor and stuck very close by her as she said I could stay with her which started off fine and no problem or issue but then a few of the girls such as Emma (another Emma not Emma Buck) ,Hannah and Aiden came up to us and said to my tutor that I could hang around with them which my tutor encouraged ok these girls and Aiden were really nice and I did like them but I was so worried of bumping into the boys while we were on the ferry so I didn’t really want to stay with anyone other than my tutor which sounds babyish yes I know but still ..

 

Anyway I went and hung around with Emma,Hannah and Aiden as my tutor had encouraged well pretty much forced me but actually I enjoyed hanging around with them it was nice of them to let me hang around with them and it was all great until Emma and Hannah started feeling ill from the motion of the ferry and I soon lost all three of them and was left on my own wandering around the ferry not sure where to go or what to do so I attempted to go and find my tutor again and stick with her again but no matter how hard I looked I couldn’t find her anywhere or any of the other teachers so had no choice but to wander around on my own but hey it wasn’t so bad as I went in some of the shops on the ferry

 

Once we arrived we headed back onto the coach and headed for the sweet factory which was actually really cool watching them making hard-boiled sweets and then being allowed to sample some they were actually really nice so as we were leaving and past through their gift shop I bought myself a big 101 dalmatian lolly pop and a bag of mint hard-boiled sweets  .We all then quickly loaded back up on the coaches and then headed off for the little market  which wasn’t too long a drive and I walked around with several groups of people as I lost one group of people I was walking with an then found some others to walk around with an then lost them and found the original people I was walking around with etc but the market was really cool to look around and most of us bought ourselves beret from one of the stalls I got myself a blue one ,Once we had finished having our free time to walk around the market once again it was time to load back onto the coaches by which time pretty much everyone was feeling ill as they had bought and eaten too many sweets from the sweet factory and in the sweet shop at the market even though the teachers kept telling them not to eat too many as they would feel ill 🙂 anyway we then headed off for the big shopping mall called Citie Europe where again we were allowed to go off on our own as long as met our group teacher back at certain times for a register so they could make sure they still had us all .The shopping mall was HUGE but so amazing at the same time and I loved walking around again with various people as I lost one lot , found another etc .I went in loads of shops one of the shops I liked in particular was a toy shop which unusual toys and teddies at the time I was Eeyore mad and the lady who owned this small shop had a plush Eeyore teddy cuddling a pink teddy bear which I had to buy to add to my collection  as I liked to collect them .Sadly after the mall it was time for us to start making our way back to the ferry to start making our journey home which we ended up being delayed as one of the girls got lost and got left in the mall so the teachers had to go back to find her and there was also loads of traffic on the roads back to the ferry .Eventually we made it to the ferry but the ferry was a lot more bumpy coming home as it was going out but that didn’t bother me too much really .Seeing as we had run out of time to go to the french restaurant we were meant to go to I bought myself a plate of chips and can of coke for dinner on the ferry

 

I was so glad after all that my dad had made me go up to my teacher sobbing as if he hadn’t of made me do that no way would I have gone on the trip and I had an absolutely amazing time and enjoyed every minute of it so obviously was glad I did go in the end the only down side was that I don’t think the boys did ever get dealt with and also everyone on our coach was throwing up on the way back which was gross luckily though I wasn’t one of the ones who was but other than that it really was a fab trip and I suppose really this shows you really shouldn’t let bullies stop you from doing anything at all ad that it really is important to tell a grown up about it as soon as possible

The appointment

Things had got to the point that I was getting fed up with people making nasty comments about the way I looked and staring and also asking questions about my ear because I could never tell if they really wanted to know or if they wanted to know to tell someone else and have a laugh about it my usual response was I was born like it ,Being 10 I didn’t really know what else to say nor did I ever really know how to answer the other children’s  questions and I didn’t really know how to cope with the comments and the stares or how exactly was the right way for me to act luckily without even knowing it help was just around the corner and someone very special was about to help me the best he could with this problem but little did I know of this .I had assumed that I was just going for a normal routine appointment at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital,London to see my consultant Neil Bulstrode which is kind of true as I did go along to see him at Great Ormond Street Hospital but as well as having just our usual appointment of seeing how things were going etc Neil Bulstrode wanted to talk to me about something else once me and dad had explained the trouble I was having with my ear at school what happened next I was not ever expecting in a million years Neil Bulstrode turned round and said to me that he could help me and that he could help me by changing my little ear to look like my good ear an actual “normal” looking ear which I never realised could actually be done or could happen all I knew was that this was my little ear and I was born with it Neil then explained that I had a few choices about what I could do which were :

• Prosthetic ear (fake ear which attaches onto the side of the head with clips)
• leave my ear how it was
• Rib graft reconstruction 2 stage operation

Obviously it had come as a shock to me that he really could help my ear to be “normal” and I hadn’t realized things like this could ever be done so I didn’t really know what to say or how I felt about the whole Idea of  pretty much getting a new ear  so Neil Bulstrode said that I could go home and have a think about it as I didn’t really know what to say whether I wanted anything done or not if so what as to me none of this had ever been an option but I liked the fact that my dad was grinning all the way through the appointment and that he said he didn’t mind what I did as long as it was what I wanted and I was happy and how he would be there to support me and so would my mum no matter what decision I made we went away and the whole time all I had on my mind was what was I going to do about my ear and how amazing it was that Neil Bulstrode could help me

By the time we got on the train at London Liverpool street I had made my mind up that I wanted to have rib graft because to me having a fake ear wasn’t an option because it wasn’t a real ear and as though it wouldn’t be my ear and I thought the idea of being able to take my ear on or off was a really weird idea,As I had never heard of anyone being able to take their ears off before .Leaving my ear also wasn’t  an option to me as I knew if I left it and did nothing I would still be bullied at school and would still face the comments,stares and questions and I didn’t want that and I thought by having the 2 operations that people would leave me alone and stop asking questions as it would look like a real ear and I knew by having the operations done my ear would look and feel like my own ear because it would be my other “normal ” ear .The next day my dad rung Neil Bulstrode at great Ormond street and told him that I had made my decision ok it would have been handy if I could have made it whilst I was actually at Great Ormond Street Hospital seeing Neil Bulstrode but I was glad to have taken the time to think about things even if it didn’t take me too long