Real Life Stories

Real Stories. Real Recipients.

A Miraculous Journey Begins
The discovery that you have gone deaf or are swiftly headed down that path is not the end of hope. Instead, it is only the starting point on a miraculous journey that may happily lead you back into the world of hearing.

It is a journey that may make it possible for you to freely converse with your spouse, your children, and other loved ones, as well as with friends, neighbors, business associates, and even total strangers.

It is a journey that may allow you to enjoy music, chat on the phone, easily and plainly follow the dialogue in movies and theatrical stage presentations, and to fully drench yourself in the sounds of the world around you—the chirping of birds, the rustling of the leaves on a tree, the crashing of waves along the sandy shore of your favorite resort beach.

Deafness. Silence That Shatters.
Losing your hearing is both frightening and shattering.  “The discovery that my hearing was going away was devastating,” says Sue Smith, 50, a Phoenix grandmother who works for a member of the Arizona legislature. “My husband said the progression of my hearing loss was like watching someone slowly wither away. I stopped going out, I stopped visiting with my friends, I stopped calling people on the phone. I drifted further and further away from even my own family. All that I could do was read books and watch closed-captioned TV.

It took about six years for Michelle Tjelmeland (pronounced CHUM-land) of Springfield, Illinois, to gradually become deaf, starting when she was a college student. “As I was losing my hearing, I felt like I was losing myself,” she recalls.

Ultimately, the loss of hearing forced Michelle to abandon her position as a middle school teacher of language arts. And, as was true for Sue, outgoing Michelle soon became withdrawn. “Because I couldn’t hear or participate in conversations, I began to isolate myself,” she says. “I inched into depression.”

Jim Alsup, 36, a financial industry consultant in Leawood, Kansas, just outside Kansas City, turned 24 when he was plunged into that realm where noise cannot enter. Tragically, his life was just beginning—newly married, planning a family, intending to buy a starter home and looking forward to climbing the ladder of success at the office that only a short time earlier had hired him. Then, suddenly, on a Sunday night in June, 1994, he was ravaged by an autoimmune disease that leapt seemingly out of nowhere.

“I went to bed feeling like I had something going on with my sinuses,” he recalls. “I woke up the next morning with an odd dizziness and hearing a strange sound of rushing in my left ear. I took some sinus medicine for it and went off to work. By noon, my condition had grown a lot worse. A day later, I couldn’t hear a thing out of my left ear. And I couldn’t stand without falling over. I ended up in the hospital.

“The whole episode was shocking because I had never been sick a day in my life. And, yet, here I was, in a hospital bed for two weeks while the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong with me.”

Michelle, on the other hand, grew deaf gradually over a period of about a decade. But even in her case, the onset of total deafness took her by surprise, so abrupt was it at the end. “I was pregnant with my first child,” she says. “Almost overnight I went completely deaf. The doctors told me it was the result of sensorineural hearing loss. Basically, I had nerve damage, which caused the sound-transmitting hair cells of my inner ear to rapidly stop functioning.”

(Michelle suffered a double blow: when her daughter Ellie emerged from the womb, it turned out that she, like Michelle, was profoundly deaf.)

Coping Strategies Usually Fall Short
As hearing vanishes, people try various ways to compensate, such as getting fitted for hearing aids and relying more and more heavily on assistive hearing devices, such as amplifiers for their telephones. The problem with most coping strategies, however, is that they are only temporary solutions. Sooner or later, the hearing aids may prove not to be enough.

Sue can attest to that. She tried one coping strategy after another until, finally, she says, “I came to terms with the fact that I was deaf. However, because my husband was on permanent disability and I was the sole breadwinner in my home, I could not go through life deaf, especially not with the job I held as the executive assistant to a state senator where being able to hear well is so extremely important.”

Jim was basically in the same boat. His job demanded top communications skills, built on a foundation of good hearing. That was why his wife Nancy pushed for him to be seen by doctors at the University of Iowa after she read an article in U.S. News and World Report that listed the school as a top institution for treatment of hearing disorders.

“She wrangled an appointment for me there, and they did what they could to treat me,” he says. “But my hearing was still gone. At that point, they referred me to the care of a doctor here in Kansas City who happened to be one of world’s foremost authorities in hearing loss.”

The Cochlear Implant Option
Jim’s new doctor told him he appeared to be a candidate to receive a cochlear implant. “I had never heard of a cochlear implant before this,” Jim says.

A cochlear implant is a medical device that features an electrode array that is surgically placed in your inner ear. The internal part is a microchip implant that receives sound from the external device. It also consists of three external components—namely, a microphone that collects sounds, a programmable microcomputer processor that converts the collected sounds into electronic signals, and a transmitter that beams those signals to the electrode array inside your ear (from there, the signals proceed directly to your brain, where they are interpreted as understandable sound). All is secured by an internal magnet and an external one (the headpiece).

The federal Food and Drug Administration reports that, as of 2005 (the most recent year for which figures are available) more than 22,000 adults and 15,000 children in the United States have received a cochlear implant in either one or both ears.

After she found out about the cochlear implant option, Sue—cautious by nature—turned to the Internet and conducted an extensive search for any and all information concerning the device.
“I got involved with support groups that helped me get answers to my many questions about cochlear implants,” she says. “Two that were very valuable to me were the Say What Club and the Bionic Ear Association. Through those groups, I met many people who had already been implanted. I found out from them how they liked their devices and what kind of a difference they made in their lives. Some of them visited me at my home and others came by my office to show me how their implants worked, how they could hear on the phone. One gentleman was deaf since birth, but he could engage in conversations as though he had been able to hear his entire life. It was incredible. This helped me realize that the cochlear implant would be the best thing for me.”

Truly remarkable though cochlear implants are, they’re not given to just anybody who asks. You first must be thoroughly evaluated to see whether you are a good candidate to receive one. To make that determination, doctors typically will look at every aspect of your physical state. This involves a series of MRI scans of your head and many different tests to gauge your capacity for restoration of hearing.

Sue turned out to be an exceptionally good candidate for the implant, not merely because her hearing was totally gone. It was also because she had been deaf for only a relatively short time, which meant most of her auditory memories would still be intact. “That might make it easier for my brain to reach back and find what I had lost, which it did,” she explains, adding that her cochlear implant was implanted in 2001.

Hope Renewed
The hope of being able to hear again can be good medicine all by itself. Jim, for example, noticed that as soon as he decided to have the procedure done his confidence in himself was sparked anew. “I felt like, okay, I can go ahead and make plans now to move forward with rebuilding my life,” he says.

That’s how Michelle looked at it. After learning all she could about cochlear implants, it was clear to her that the time had come to begin the next part of the journey to hearing—and that was to get the device placed in her ear (which she did, right after she got one for daughter Ellie).

“The sound I hear through my cochlear implant is not perfect, but I wouldn't trade it for the world,” she says. “Sometimes, I forget that I’m deaf.”

The opinions and experiences expressed in these stories solely reflect those of the recipients interviewed. Results and experiences with the Advanced Bionics HiResolution Bionic Ear System will vary.

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