When her daughter got chickenpox at the age of two, Emma Mitchell didn’t worry too much at first.
As a nurse Emma, from Swffryd, Blaenau Gwen t, knew for most young children chicken pox is a common infection which clears up in a week or so.
But little Charlotte’s infection got worse and worse and unknown to Emma it had spread to her ears where it caused complete hearing loss in one and partial hearing loss in the other.
Hearing loss is a very rare complication of chickenpox which usually leaves nothing more than a few minor scars, but in rare cases it can be more serious.
As the trademark pox spots faded and Charlotte recovered there was nothing to suggest she had been left with hearing loss.
Being so little she adapted to what she thought was normal and began to lip read so fluently everyone believed she could hear.
Charlotte even started primary school without the hearing loss being noticed, lip reading in class.
It was only when she went to have her tonsils out aged six that a consultant noticed and Charlotte was sent for hearing tests which found she had total hearing loss in one ear and 30% loss in the other.
“I wasn’t aware of any side effects and didn’t even know there could be such serious side effects from chicken pox,” said her mother.
“I felt terrible when I was told. Awful. Why did I not pick that up?
“I didn’t have a clue because she had adapted so well. She became so good at lip reading we didn’t know she was doing it.”
Remembering when Charlotte had chickenpox, Emma says it was bad but she had seemed to recover completely.
“Charlotte and her older brother Harry got chicken pox. Harry wasn’t so bad but Charlotte was very ill and plastered with it. It was even on her eye lids. She was ill for two weeks.”
Emma says there were some signs, with hindsight, but because there was no reason to think Charlotte couldn’t hear no one picked up on them.
“She used to turn my face to face her when she was little and when she became more verbal, aged three, she had problems going to parties because there was too much information going in one ear, but we didn’t know that.”
Charlotte, now, 18, successfully lip read her way through school and at Coleg Gwent, picking up her A levels this week with an A* and two As, grades that have got her into Liverpool University to read law.
The Welsh Deaf Squad U-18 rugby player, hopes to be a barrister or solicitor in court one day. She is confident she can lip read well enough for court and says she doesn’t view her hearing loss as a disability, because it’s all she’s ever really known.
“I can’t remember being ill with chickenpox and because I adapted so early to what happened no one noticed. I’d had all my baby hearing tests before I had chicken pox and no one knew.
“At school and college I just coped with it. I would always lip read my teachers all through school. I’m not conscious I’m doing it. It’s just automatic.
“People think of people being deaf when they lip read but I can still hear 70% in one ear but I don’t really hear the specifics of the word so lip read. I fit the words to the lips, but it means I have to concentrate hard.”
Her passion for rugby has left flanker Emma with injuries including a broken cheek bone, wrist, torn ligaments and several black eyes, but she’s not worried about ear injuries on the field, despite being warned her hearing loss may get worse in her good ear.
“I don’t wear a scrum cap. I just never got into the habit. I do lip read for the team which means sometimes I can tell what the other team are saying and planning even when they say something quietly. That comes in handy.”
Charlotte played for Coleg Gwent women’s rugby team which was both Welsh sevens and Welsh tens champions. She also played for Ynysddu Panthers U-18s and now Ynysddu seniors.
“I don’t see my hearing loss as a disability. I just see it as normal. I won’t let it hold me back.”
