HearAgain Part 2

Continued from HearAgain...

On the upside you become very observant. You can read moods and expressions from across the room. You intuitively know when something is bothering someone. Body language speaks volumes. You know when your children are doing something they shouldn’t or when they don’t feel well. You can watch your husband walk up the driveway and know whether he’s in a good mood or a bad one. You can see the sad little faces of children whose parents are ignoring them in restaurants. The sparkle in her eyes and the smile on her face speak of a young bride’s love for her new husband as eloquently as her words might.

Even the most observant of hearing impaired people though can’t compensate for the lack of sound totally. And just as a blind person can’t really understand the color blue, a deaf person can’t really understand the sound of laughter.

As I’ve grown older there has been a progression from just one hearing aid to two and from in-the-ear hearing aids to behind-the-ear ones. The smaller ones just didn’t have the room to pack the power I needed to have for more amplification.

But first let me tell you mama’s story. I wrote this just a few days after her initial hook-up.

Mama can hear

Praise the Lord and pass the biscuits! Mama can hear!

Hearing loss is a hereditary problem in our family. I never knew my Grandmother as a hearing person. I've never known my mother to not wear a hearing aid. Except for the earliest years of my children's lives they have never known me to not wear one. Two of my three children have some degree of hearing loss. That's just the way it is in our family.

But the times they are a changing. And for our family it's a miracle.

In 1998 during the last months of my dad's life, mama began to notice strange lights in her field of vision. According to the MD Foundation another case of adult macular degeneration is diagnosed every three minutes in the United States of America and mama had become one of those statistics. A vision thief, Macular Degeneration causes sight-sensing cells in the macular zone of the retina to malfunction and results in debilitating loss of vital central or detail vision. Simple put, MD causes blindness.

She began a series of laser treatments to try and halt the damage but it was too late. She lost the entire central vision in her left eye and all of the vision in her right eye. In a very short period of time she became both profoundly deaf and legally blind. Gone was her ability to lip-read, which destroyed her ability to compensate for her hearing loss.

How do I even begin to describe the feeling of hopelessness that deafness brings. Footsteps. Birds singing. The cry of a child. Doors opening and closing. Pans rattling in the cupboard. The crunch of tires on gravel. The scratch of a pen on paper. Water pouring into a glass. The rasp of a fingernail file. The phone ringing. The voice of a loved one.

All of these things are gone. Just gone. Now add blindness.

Oh we tried everything. Mama got special glasses which enable her to read if she holds the large print book 4 inches from her lenses. And she got one the most powerful hearing aids known to mankind.

She's adjusted to the loss of vision pretty well. She has been able to retain her peripheal vision and her sense of humor but the high-priced hearing aid didn't help. It was retired to a velvet-lined box in a drawer of her dresser even before the new wore off. She began carrying a write on/wipe off board with her everywhere. She stopped going out to visit her friends. She couldn't drive and if we took her it was such a strain to communicate. We hated it for her and, well, she just hated it.

But then one day in an desperate attempt to create some kind of solution we took her to yet another hearing specialist. And suddenly there was hope. He strongly felt that mama was an excellent candidate for a Cochlear Implant. There are several types of implant devises but they all have four features in common: a microphone that picks up the sound, a signal processor that converts the sound into electrical signals, a transmission system that transmits the electrical signals to the implanted electrodes, and an electrode or an electrode array (consisting of multiple electrodes) that is inserted directly into the cochlea by a surgeon.

He suggested we talk to the doctors at MCG but because of lack of state funding (Shame on you Georgia senators and congressmen!) the doctors there had no choice but to send us to Charleston to the Medical University of South Carolina. To make a long story short mama was tested and accepted for an implant and on September 2, 2004 she was surgically implanted with the internal portion of the device. She looked pretty rough the first few days after the outpatient surgery but she's one tough lady and daily she got stronger and stronger. 10 days after the surgery we had the stitches removed by her local doctor and had her hair washed and cut (Thanks Wanda!) and believe you me... that made her feel MUCH better.

Yesterday, September 30th, my oldest brother Chris and I took her back to Charleston to be fitted with the external portion. So much was riding on this one meeting and the hall seemed 3 miles long as we were escorted to the exam room. Abby, mom's audiologist, sat mama down and before I could find a chair and put down my purse, she had the devise in place and mama could hear. Just like that. Her face was like a child's at Christmas. She began to talk in her normal tone of voice - gave a gasp - and immediately her voice dropped down to a whisper. "My voice is so loud!", she said with a laugh. Not quite able to believe it and out of habit I picked up mama's write board prepared to supplement what Abby had to tell her and could only sit there in awe as she had a complete conversation with mama. She didn't have to repeat her self - mama answered and asked questions - she explained all the parts and had mama put them together. I couldn't take my eyes off mama's face and as the enormity of what was happening began to sink in I felt the sting of tears in my eyes and found it hard to breathe. I glanced at Chris and there he was with tears streaming down his face too. We smiled at each other - well, ok, we grinned at each other - and broke out laughing.

When we left Abby's office that day the last thing she said to mama was "I'm going to pack all this stuff up and I want you to go outside and become reacquainted with all the wonderful sounds you have missed for so long".

For the next few months there will be adjustment appointments. As mama begins to 'remember' how to hear the implant will be adjusted to supplement what she hears now with her new knowledge of sounds. She has homework. She has to read out loud to herself so she can become re-acquainted with her own voice. Right now she only hears and understands if you talk face to face with her but she DOES hear and understand. She heard me say "I love you mama."

Soon she will be able to hear her great-grandchildren laugh and cry and make raspberries while they eat their peas and carrots and she will hear her granddaughter say her marriage vows in November. At Christmas she will hear the carolers when they visit her house. She will be able to hear her birds sing and the wind blow. When somebody knocks on her door she’ll hear it and when someone calls on the phone she will be able to answer it. She'll become reacquainted with her friends and catch up on all the gossip. She will hear music and knowing mama she'll probably dance a little dance. And you can bet your bottom dollar she will hear "I love you" a thousand, million, gazillion times.

Oh happy day. Thank you Lord … Mama can hear.

Footnote: Mama is progressing very nicely. She’s even able to talk on the phone. Nevertheless, there have been trials. Some very difficult problems with vertigo but mama’s a gamer. She says .. “I’d rather be dizzy and be able to hear than be sober (not dizzy) and deaf.”

Next … I’ll finally get to my story.

HearAgain

A journey from hearing loss….

Some background … From the time I can consciously remember I have always known that hearing loss was going to be a dominate part of my life. My grandmother was totally deaf from her early teenage years. My mother began wearing a hearing aid before I was born, so I’ve never known her as a hearing adult. She told me recently that she even considered not having children because she was afraid the condition was hereditary. She visited a hearing ‘specialist’ in Atlanta who assured her she couldn’t pass it along to her children. Ah well. As it turns out two of her four children ‘got it’. Me and my younger brother. I am grateful for that specialist though. If not for her I wouldn’t be writing these words and you would never have had the chance to read my story.

I guess I should start at the beginning…

I can remember as a child, spending the night with my grandmother, waking up in the early morning in her big double, feather bed and hearing her calling me much too loudly, "You’re going to be late for school!" On bright sunny mornings (or morning I just slept late) I liked to pull the homemade quilt over my head and squint my eyes. If I turned my head back and forth, just so, I could make my own kaleidoscope from the bright colors of the quilt. On cold mornings I would invariable smell oatmeal cooking on the stove and hear the scrape of a knife spreading fresh butter on a piece of toasted bread. I felt so loved.

But even as a child I was conscious of how much she missed. She never heard her husband say "I love You" or “Will you be my wife?”. She didn’t hear the organ play the Wedding march or Granddaddy saying “I do” on their wedding day. She never once heard her newborn children cry. She couldn’t hear a knock on the door or a friend calling her name from across the street, birds singing, the whisper of the wind or the squeak of the front porch swing. She never knew what her daughter’s or her son’s voices sounded like. Or for that matter any of her grandchildren’s. She didn’t use sign language and it’s strange that I never remember her not understanding anything I said to her.

I remember once as a newly licensed teenager, I took her shopping and while we walked up and down the aisles we got separated. Before I knew what was happening I heard my name being called. And so did everyone else in the store. She had no concept of how loud or soft she was talking. She couldn’t even hear her own voice. And to my everlasting shame, I remember being embarrassed.

She never let her hearing loss hold her back though. My mother told me that before she was born, Grandmama and Granddaddy would go dancing two or three times a week. She cut a pretty good figure on the dance floor to. She could feel the music and pick up the beat that way. Mama was born in 1923. I used to try and try to imagine my Grandmother doing the ‘Charleston’ and usually ended up laughing and saying “No way Grandma!” She was active in her Church and sat front and center every Sunday and she would sing her version of the songs listed in the program at the appropriate time. She was at every Ladies’ Social the church had. Wednesday night prayer service … she was there. She could drive the stick shift by feeling the strain of the car when it was time to change gears. She was the most wonderful grandmother anyone could ever possible want. And I’m so glad she was mine.

By the time I was in grade school, my friends couldn’t count on my hearing them whisper in my ears. By the time I was in high school I started sitting in the front of the class so I could hear the teachers better. After marriage and the birth of my second child I could no longer pretend that I was getting by. There are all kinds of ways to pretend. Someone says something to you and you smile and nod your head. Or you say, “Sorry, I don’t mean to change the conversation but have you …,” (this one will keep you from making a complete fool of yourself by saying something completely unrelated to what was being said). You wave at friends in the grocery store and say “I am soooo late. Can we talk later?” When every other tactic fails and you respond to what you ‘think’ you heard somebody say and you get this blank look from them … you laugh to cover up the mistake. But you make a mental note to avoid that person for a while and hope they forget the dumb thing you said.

With progressive hearing loss by the time you reach this point you are already well on the way to isolating yourself from not only the outside world but many times your family as well. You don’t accept party invitations or go to the mall with girlfriends. You don’t answer the phone, preferring to let the caller leave a message so you can play it over and over until you finally understand it. If you are required to attend a meeting you pretend to be taking notes but you never offer an opinion. You don’t ask questions because maybe, just maybe the person before you asked what you wanted to know but you didn’t hear the answer. If you ask it again everybody will know you didn’t hear it and you think some of them will say to themselves. ‘God. We just answered that one.’

On the upside you become very observant. You can read moods and expressions from across the room. You intuitively know when something is bothering someone. Body language speaks volumes. You know when your children are doing something they shouldn’t or when they don’t feel well. You can watch your husband walk up the driveway and know whether he’s had a good day or a bad one. You can see the sad little faces of children whose parents are ignoring them in restaurants. The sparkle in her eyes and the smile on her face speak of a young bride’s love for her new husband as eloquently as her words might.

Continued on HearAgain Part 2.