Tom was 20 months old when he contracted pneumococcal meningitis in April 2006. The illness left him profoundly deaf.

Rushcliffe PCT (now merged and part of Nottinghamshire County Teaching PCT) refused funding for simultaneous bilateral implants, and a unilateral implantation took place in June 2006. Following a rejected appeal the Broekhuizen's self-funded the second implant in September of that year.

Tom lost his hearing in both ears as a result of his illness. He was at an age where his language development was starting to 'explode' and we wanted to do everything in our power to help him maintain that momentum. With the technology available to offer hearing in both ears - why stop at one?

In addition, Tom's cochlea showed signs of ossification on MRI scans. We felt that we had to act quickly or the opportunity would be lost.

The implant team's initial request for bilateral implants was refused, as was a subsequent appeal. We took the appeal to the Healthcare Commission who expected to take four-six months to report. At this point we decided to self-fund; family, friends and complete strangers were incredibly generous and the money was available pretty quickly. Tom became the Nottingham Cochlear Implant Programme's first private patient in September 2006.

As it was it took a year for the Healthcare Commission to uphold the PCT's decision (September 2007) and so we are glad we acted when we did.

Switch on was in October 2006.

Tom is age-appropriate for speech and language development. He has started conversing on the phone and environments have to be particularly noisy before there is any sign that Tom is struggling to understand. We have to make precious little, if any, allowance for Tom's deafness when he's wearing his implants.

There is still the major test of school ahead of Tom but, as things stand at the moment, he is making virtually 'normal' progress (if there is such a thing with children!)

We have an excellent Teacher of the Deaf from the local Education Authority and also attend Auditory Verbal Therapy sessions although these sessions are fairly infrequent now. We have been fairly 'intensive' with language and, as a result, have become an incredibly talkative household. This means, as you might imagine, that Tom has become a little boy with alot to say for himself!

Tom doesn't recall not having implants and, although he is aware that he has 'special ears', he is too young to give it much thought.