I was born at 2.22pm on 24/6/85, 3 months early after my mum was given some sort of injection to delay my birth. My earliest memory is aged 3 at playschool, when another girl fell off the slide, broke her arm and got taken to hospital.
I don't remember, but mum says I had a horrible teacher at infant school called Miss Fardy. She smacked me when I destroyed a Wendy house, and complained at parents evening that all the children were too noisy and ran around too much. My mum came to collect me one day and saw the other children carrying little yellow books. When she asked about them, Miss Fardy said I didn't have one as she 'didn't think I was ready' to start reading. I was 6 and could already read bits and bobs at home. My mum then taught me to read using the Puddle Lane childrens books.
It was around this time that my school suggested I have a hearing test. When told of the results, Miss Fardy said she thought I was just ignoring her. I was given some sort of foamy headphones/radio aid combo as they couldn't get me actual hearing aids until I was 7. I didn't like it- I don't remember being told I needed it, but all of a sudden I had to wear this thing and everybody was making fun of me.
When I was 7 I got Starkey Paediatric ITEs, which I hated. They make everything loud and fuzzy, and I hated wearing the radio aid as it was obvious I was different. I was different from the other children who wore aids as they all had BTEs and knew each other before I came along. I used to get in trouble for taking out the radio aid leads and hearing aids. I loved being with the other kids in the unit but hated mainstream classes as they were now loud, noisy, and crowded with the unit staff constantly following me and treating me like a small child. I used to take them out the minute I got home. They fell in a puddle once when I got out of the car, and we had to dry them out with a hairdryer.
When I was 7 or 8 my nanna died from ovarian cancer. I don't remember much about it but seeing her in hospital/hospice and then suddenly she was gone. Mum used to drop me off at nanna and grandads in the school holidays when she went to work part time in the mornings, and I remember having toast with jam on, and eating boiled eggs with brown bread soldiers with nanna. I remember coming home from playschool once with a painting, the kind where it still smelled like poster paint and the paper was crusted thickly with colours. Grandad in his typical way said 'What's this, we don't wanna be doin with this, ere we go!' and put it in the bin as the paint was flaking off. I was sad.
Mum tells me that after nanna died, grandad used to come round every night after I'd been put to bed. After a few months I kept coming downstairs and refusing to go back to bed- when mum asked me what the matter was, I cried and said I couldn't sleep because I was thinking about nanna.
My best friends at the time were Sarah and James, twins who lived across the road. We used to play in the garden and write plays. I remember their older sister asking if I had 'aids'- not funny. They moved away when I was 13 and in high school.
More stories to come...
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