Bone Anchored Hearing Aid for Barrie

In 2010 I acquired an infection in my left ear and was placed on antibiotics, after two weeks on the antibiotics I was admitted to ChCh Hospital in the Ear Nose Throat ward and under went my first operation on the left ear. Upon discharge was given a stronger antibiotic yet the infection refused to respond to the antibiotic again; and was readmitted to ChCh Hospital. Now the infection was affecting the lining of the brain and had to under go another operation which left me deaf in the left ear. I was placed on a strong antibiotic that was prescribed by Infectious Disease Department of the hospital, as this was so strong I required to have a pic line inserted in my left arm that went into my heart to deliver the antibiotics (6 pic lines in total, & 1 blood clot in arm caused by one of the pic lines). The long term plan after having surgery was to have reconstruction surgery to regain hearing on the left side; yet as the infection was so bad the 10th operation was to remove all of the Mastoid region behind the left ear, the ear drum, ear canal nerves etc and to have the ear completely sealed off so no chance of having the reconstruction surgery. The only type of hearing aid I can have is a Bone Anchored Hearing Aid (BAHA) which would require a piece to be surgically attached into the skull which would allow the processor unit to attache to. As the deafness was caused by an infection ACC has turned me done for financial assistance in purchasing the BAHA, so are hoping to be able to raise funds for the purchase of a BAHA, surgery costs and the fine tuning of the BAHA after it has been activated.

The only good thing to come out of this was that on the 2nd of November 2010 after a MRI scan, they picked up that I have a brain tumor that is the size of a pea on the right side of my brain, this is benign but needs to be checked every 12 months with MRI scan.