I was born with "Osteogenesis Imperfecta" which is characterized by the lack of collagen in the body. Collagen gives tissues tensile strength and without this substance, tissues are fragile and break quite easily. Bones are mainly affected with fractures occurring with little to-no trauma at all. Another hallmark of the disease is "hearing loss". I began losing my hearing while I was in college but shortly after graduating from medical school, I lost my hearing completely. I was able to regain some hearing with the use of hearing aids but my hearing loss continued to worsen year after year. At present, I am totally deaf in one ear and have "profound" hearing loss in the remaining ear. My main mode of communication is lip reading. I was approved for bilateral cochlear implants back in February, 2020 but the COVID-19 Pandemic started and all "elective surgeries" were cancelled, until now. I just found out last week my surgery is scheduled for May 18, 2020. This is my story.
