A PROFOUNDLY deaf teenager told yesterday of her desire to see her children before she loses her sight.

Nicola Henderson knows that one day she will be plunged into a world of darkness and silence.

The 17-year-old college student has already lost 30 per cent of her peripheral vision.

She suffers from Usher Syndrome Type One, a degenerative condition which results in blindness, as well as deafness, in more severe cases like Nicola's.

Nicola, the second youngest of five sisters from Blyth, Northumberland, can only speak by sign language with her family interpreting for her.

Yesterday, she said: "The hardest thing is not knowing when I will lose my sight. It could be in one year or ten.

"I don't think it'll happen suddenly, but it's hard to think about how it's going to be.

"I might not want to get married, but I also think: 'Who is going to marry me?' and 'How will I have children?'

"I do want to have children because I love them so much. That is the thing I want to see more than anything - my baby."

Nicola, who started losing her sight at the age of 12, has received support from the charity Sense, which works with the blind and deaf.

She will do a parachute jump for Sense later this month and in October she travels to London to talk to other children about her experiences.