‘ventricular septile defect’ and ‘non stenotic bicuspid aortic valve’ so in other words he only has 2 aortic valves in his heart. He was a very sickly child and at 3 years of age we had his tonsils and adenoids removed, he use to frequently stop breathing during his sleep which resulted in him being rushed to hospital twice, as his tonsils were extremely enlarged. At the age of 5 I noticed that C would cup his right ear to listen when I spoke, and if he was lying down with his right ear covered he would lift his head up and ask me to repeat what I said. I then took C to see an audiologist where we tested his hearing and found out he was 50%always vigilant about completing homework. I must admit, I overdid all the speech and together with my teaching career, I developed vocal nodules, which had to be treated.

Primary school was another challenge. Our son’s residual hearing deteriorated to the point that he needed a cochlear implant in order to hear. This was very daunting as the operation had not yet been done in KZN. It was arranged and fortunately was a success, which was confirmed after a month of waiting for ‘switch on’. He progressed to mainstream schooling and is at present studying at university.

At the time of diagnosis I was 7 months into my 2nd pregnancy. At 5 weeks of age an ABR confirmed that our daughter’s hearing was normal, which was a huge relief. Her speech