But first here's a quick recap. Part One

I would say that this day marked the beginning of a new chapter but I can't really say that. I mean if I woke up from surgery and they switched it on straight away and I had better hearing I guess we could call that a new chapter. But actually there are many hurdles and much waiting until that happens so I like to refer to this day as the end of one chapter and the beginning of a period of waiting for the next one to begin.

So what have I left behind?

Early twenties I begin to get an inkling of something not quite right with my hearing. There's no accident, horrific illness, etc that brings it on. All I can say is that I started becoming aware of a ringing in the ear. The big T as doctors call it..tinnitus. Annoying but I'll live. It'll probably go....but doesn't. It gets worse to the point where in that ear...left...I struggle to hear someone on the phone. Worse still I start getting sudden dizzy attacks of vertigo. Not fun when one of those was whilst riding my bike!

It carries on getting worse the hearing but the vertigo is not often and so I adjust and use my fully functioning right ear for any conversation in public or on the phone. OK so its embarrassing when someone on your left side thinks you're being rude when they are saying "excuse me..." like five times and you don't respond!

Teacher training finishes in 1994 and I begin a teaching career as a partially deaf person but its entirely doable. I try an analogue hearing aid in the left ear but I can't get used to it and it doesn't feel like it offers me any great improvement.

I get married in 1995! Gorgeous woman Christina.....She's an amazing person....she needs to be to cope with what the future will hold!

So things carry on for about ten to twelve years with one ear and life goes on. My two boys are born in those years. N and J in 1999 and 2001.

But then I get that familiar feeling that something isn't quite right with the right one! I try to tell myself it'll be fine and its just temporary and its not the same as the left. Well, at first it seems that way......

Pre surgery jitters

So in the weeks leading up to the operation on November 13th....
Its fine when it comes through in September....Oh great I have the date of my surgery....
Then as it gets nearer and nearer you feel like you might be walking to your doom.....WHAT HAVE I DONE!!!!

It starts to get like....So I'm going to let a surgeon drill a hole in my skull to thread a wire through there, carefully avoiding the facial nerve into a tiny thing about 2 cm wide......while I'm asleep......

Told the athletics team at school to keep training hard as this is the last training session I'll be running before Christmas....its only November 7th....a bit early to be talking about the festive period!

Then the day before. I tell my class to be good and keep learning hard because I'm going to have an operation that will hopefully make me hear better....HOPEFULLY.....

Say cheerio to work colleagues...feels like I am going off and returning as a completely different incarnation of me!!

Night before...nil by mouth from midnight! Gotta be at Kings Cross by 7.30 am. Still time to wimp out....But whats the alternative? Carry on not understanding 99% of what people say...or take the plunge?

Tomorrow.....my freedom, my hope or my doom?