I’m Mark. I’m 25 years old. I’m a gay man living in Brooklyn, and I work as an analyst for Conde Nast. I love absorbing reality TV, singing karaoke, relaxing with my fluffy corgis, and most importantly, living my life in New York City. Oh yeah, one last thing — I was born deaf.
I was diagnosed with Mondini Syndrome when I was nine months old. Mondini syndrome is a genetic syndrome where my inner ear is malformed — in this case, my cochlea spirals half the distance a normal cochlea does. To help this, I received my first and only cochlear implant via surgery when I was two years old, in February 1994. A cochlear implant is a “device that replaces the function of the damaged inner ear” according to the Hearing Associates of Central Florida — it is both an [...]