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A mum was left completely deaf and unable to enjoy her daughter's dance recitals - after she was bitten by a tick.

Danielle Riches, 38, initially developed a simple bruise but was actually a tick bite which was left untreated for 11 months and developed into Lyme disease.

Her bite mark left her with crippling aches and chronic fatigue which forced her to quit her much-loved job as a hairdresser.

Months later her hearing had completely gone and her sister Marcella has opened up about the "heartbreaking" affects on the family.

Marcella explained: "Her daughter Quinn used to love going outside in the garden but now Danielle is too scared to even go on grass.

"I would say her behaviour has changed but because she's only five she hasn't expressed to us exactly how she's feeling.

"She goes dancing with my son so she's upset that her mum can't hear her at her dance recitals.

"I couldn't bear to see her, I just couldn't cope with it."

It all began in June last year when Danielle developed a bite mark on her right arm.

Marcella said: "She had this bullseye bite mark on her right arm, it looked like a bruise but it was more like a bite. It had a red ring that appeared. It was really nasty looking it looked horrible.

"She had just been to Majorca but it's hard to tell when she got the bite because it can appear after three weeks.

"She started to get some side affects, she got chronic fatigue to the point where she couldn't get out of bed and she had aches and pains in her body.

"She lost an enormous amount of weight in a very short space of time. It just fell off of her.

"My partner had not seen her for a couple of weeks but he had heard about my sister's weight loss.

''He went down and saw her and immediately said: 'We need to sort your sister out, something is wrong, we need to get her help now.'

"She got quite frightened. She just didn't know what was going on."

After immediately visiting her GP Danielle was given antibiotic cream and was sent home.

The cream didn't help matters and Danielle went to her doctors for blood tests which didn't throw up anything alarming.

By September Danielle's hearing had gone in one ear and her concerns began to escalate.

Marcella added: "She went to the GP and basically just said: 'You have got to help me.'

Danielle saw five different GP's who all insisted her hearing would return - but the mum persisted and asked for a referral which she was told would take some time.

But by December Danielle's hearing had completely gone in both ears and she was eventually given an appointment at the Darent Valley Hospital in Kent, in February.

There they discovered that Danielle tested positive for Lymes disease and she was referred to infectious diseases at Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel in May.

"It sounds a bit crazy but we were glad we had an answer.

"When we went to the hospital the doctor said: 'Oh my word. I'm going to get you a bed.'

"We said: 'Is she staying here then?' and he said: 'Oh yes!'"

The mum stayed there for three and a half weeks where she underwent treatment and continued to go to the hospital every two weeks.

Danielle regularly attended St Thomas's Hospital in Southwark, where she was told she would be able to have a cochlear implant to provide a modified sense of sound.

And finally, almost a year after she first lost her hearing, the implant was fitted in Guy's hospital in September- but it still had to be turned on.

"My mum texted me saying she doesn't know what to do if it doesn't work. We were still apprehensive even up until the morning it was going to be turned on."

Thankfully, the implant worked and Danielle can now hear her family and friends.