Our CI Stories with Pictures

We took a few pictures in Philip & Abby's garden at church.

The House Ear Clinic is celebrating it's 65th year in 2011 and asked Daddy & I if we would write 500 words about ourselves and send in a picture for their publicity. They are calling the celebration "65 Faces" and want us to be two of them. :-) Here's what we sent in:

My mother and father met in a Los Angeles lip-reading class in 1919, which mother had earlier helped organize. She had a hearing loss and was able to wear a crude aid with a liquid battery. Dad had gone completely deaf at age 20. His three brothers and father all had hearing problems. When I entered high school, mother convinced the school board in Whittier (Calif.) to begin lip reading classes for hearing impaired students. Each student (2600 at the time) took an audiometer test, which produced 120 kids with problems. Four classes began, with 30 kids in each; the program continued for over 30 years. For me, World War 2 came along and I went into the service; just barely squeaking by the hearing test.

In 1950 I bought my first hearing aid and have had many since, each more powerful than the last. In 2005 I spoke to my HMO doctor about a
Cochlear Implant (CI) and he sent me to the local ENT, who said my hearing was too good to justify one. Later on, daughter Gretchen met an
audiologist on a plane to Hawaii and got busy getting a CI for herself. She thought I ought to try it again and by this time my hearing had deteriorated to
the point that I qualified. Incidentally, her older sister wears aids in both ears, but it missed our middle daughter.
The question: Does the HMO want to spend big money on an 85 year old, and they did. I went for an EKG and there was a heart anomaly. Just a few days before the CI surgery, I was able to see a cardiologist where I was given every test they had, stressed in every direction. He faxed over to House that I was OK for the CI. What was the anomaly? I have been in good physical condition over the years.

Dr. Rick Friedman did the surgery in February of 2010. When the day came to get the Sound Processor in place, a totally new way of hearing, Gretchen and wife Barbara got out the Kleenex as I suddenly heard what I had not been hearing for a long time. Dr. Donna Mills, the Audiologist, ran me through a series of oral tests in which I could not see her face, and I scored very high. Pretty emotional to suddenly get back what you have not had for 40 or more years.

I used the listening rehabilitation CD for a time but discovered it was not needed that much. I have always been an intense listener, not only because I needed to be, but because I have a strong interest in people. In any case, when we went back for a further check on how the CI was doing, Dr. Mills, after rigorous testing, said the acuity level had gone up a bit, from 11% to 91%. Moses only took his people across the Red Sea on dry land; I got a Cochlear Implant at the House Ear Clinic at the age of 86!

For years my dad and I had heard that our hearing was not bad enough for a cochlear implant (CI) so I never thought that it was possible until July of 2008. As a Junior High School teacher, I was facing the last year of my career because of my hearing loss. My audiologist told me that I had the best hearing aids and could not expect any better sound.

On a flight to Maui I was chatting with my seatmate about hearing aids when a lady in the seat in front of us popped her head over the top and said, “I’m an audiologist in the San Diego area, and I’ve been listening to your conversation! You sound like a perfect candidate for a CI!”* Wow, was I surprised!

We chatted the rest of the trip and I called my own audiologist as soon as I returned home. I soon realized that getting a CI was a possibility and I was so excited! I started the process and was eventually recommended to the House Clinic, where the surgery was scheduled for June, after school was out. I knew I had to be ready to teach again at the end of August so I had lots of work ahead of me. Dr. Eric Wilkinson did my surgery and I went home that evening with the turban wrapped tightly around my head.

On July 17, 2009 I was hooked up with the sound processor. My sister and I went and had a celebratory lunch at Phillipe’s in downtown LA. On the way home I could hear her talk to me in the car with a minimum of lip-reading. Dr. Mills gave me a copy of the “Sound and Way Beyond” CD to ‘train my brain to hear digitally.’ I finished the last of fifteen levels two days before school started! My students were curious about the surgery and I showed them a sample CI. One of them told me that my class wasn’t getting away with as much now that I had a CI! It was a thrill to hear every word at my parent-teacher meetings. I also noticed the students did not have to constantly repeat themselves, or just give up when I couldn’t understand them.

I can now hear owls hoot on a quiet summer night, listen to talk radio in the car, and even watch a movie with my husband, things I haven’t done in over 20 years. I am so grateful for the audiologist who spoke up on the plane, Dr. Wilkinson and Dr. Mills’ expertise and the HEI’s years of research. I hope to have my right ear implanted within the next two years.

*If you are that tall, blonde audiologist who was traveling with your family to Hawaii in July, 2008, please contact me through Dr. Donna Mills at HEI. I would love to thank you in person!