And they called this ‘swimming’? Floating, supported by a ring, by someone else’s arms, in a pool the size of a kitchen? Miss Handel tapped my arm one morning and I looked at her. ‘Try to kick,’ she mouthed, and I breathed deeply and churned the tiny pool into a storm of synthetic water, feeling the strong arms slip a little, surprised by the motion.

Any patient considering cochlear implants has to be assessed to evaluate their suitability for the operation. And so one December morning I dress with shaking hands, kiss a sleepy Sonja, and walk dry-mouthed to St Michael’s. The doctor — having established that I have a profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss and having decided I was a healthy enough post-lingually deafened adult - tells me that I’m indeed a suitable candidate. My heart performs a jig and it is then that he tells me of the risks.

The surgery can traumatise the cochlear endosteum, prompting new bone growth, which might further damage the nerves in my ears. There is also a risk of infection at the site of the skin flap behind the ear and of a failure of the flap to heal normally. The operation can also damage facial nerves. Moreover, although there exist encouraging data suggesting that the corrosion of platinum electrodes used for three years was minimal, the effect of current passage has the potential for deleterious effects on surviving neural elements. In short, I might be left irreparably deafened by burgeoning bone, skin oozing and flapping from my skull, my face paralysed in a rictus of incomprehension, as electrodes melted in my ear affecting other nerve centres. I stare blankly at the doctor as if he has taken leave of his senses for it seems that I will surely take leave of most of mine under the knife.

In reply he smiles broadly, rubs his hands briskly. ‘However, such problems as tympanic malfunctions must be dealt with first. So we need to sort out those eardrums with a spot of myringoplasty and then we can get down to the serious business.’ Serious business? I’d already been told the risks of that spot of knifework — post-surgical infection and facial nerve paralysis. Ultimately the decision whether to operate is left to the patient once he has been told of the risks.

I walk for hours after the consultation, down the hill from the hospital, past St Michael on the Mount Without, knowing just how he felt. Down Christmas Steps and along to the docks, where I stop at Brunei’s Buttery for a mug of tea.

These operations could kill me, or leave me paralysed. That much I know now. But there is more than that. There is the thought of undressing and putting on a gown, of being shaved, wheeled down to theatre. I can remember the last moments before anaesthetics are administered — my heart pumping, mouth dry, as a nurse strokes my hand. Wanting to roll off the table and run. Special was lifted on to an operating table more times than even I can remember and he lay there dreading waking up to more pain, to re-broken legs, to tight stitches, raw grafted skin, oozing ears. Even now, twenty-eight years later, I can feel his panic, how he cried every time they came with the trolley to wheel him down to theatre and no one could whisper words to calm him, reassure him. Of course, I’ve been in hospital since then, when I had my heart trouble. But I didn’t choose that, didn’t plan it. Didn’t walk into the hospital with my arms outstretched, waiting to be handcuffed to chance.