Hi my name is Karen and my husband has a cochlear implant and it has enabled our communication and enhanced our lives. My husband had no hearing problems at all then one day he left for work …he felt a bit fluey but he had an important meeting so he needed to go into work …he flew to Northern Ireland and that was the last time we communicated in a normal way.
My husband fell into a coma that night in a strange hotel and the next time I saw him he was critically ill with bacterial meningitis and the doctors were explaining that the next 24 hours were crucial and if the outcome was unfavourable would I be prepared to donate his organs ….he was 45!
He did survive but his hearing had disappeared …would it return? …no one actually knew 15 days later a different specialist told me that he was profoundly deaf and he would never hear again as there was too much damage …….Ok I thought Deaf ….we can cope with that ……I knew nothing about deafness yes I knew some older people who wore hearing aids and some people I had seen signing but that was all really. I was totally unprepared for the way our lives would change completely.
My husband was diagnosed as profoundly deaf some people who are profoundly deaf can still hear some sounds my husband could hear nothing at all if he was standing on a runway and planes were revving behind him he would not know they were there.
So we started learning what it was like to be deaf. In the beginning we wrote everything down it took ages …we couldn’t sign because we did not know how and anyway the rest of the family and all are friends were hearing so it was pointless… People would call and realise how bad this deafness thing was and they would talk to me and expect somehow that magically I could make my husband understand what was being said it was frustrating for everyone. …Hearing people were not patient they made strange faces and contorted their lips to emphasise words which did not help. Or they shouted expecting to be understood. My husband started locking all the doors so people could not sneak up on him which often involved locking me out and so I would sit in the green house until he missed me or on the wall outside until ho noticed. He became isolated, jobless, depressed and angry and very different.
The specialist in Belfast had mentioned cochlear implants but when we returned to our health authority we were told that adults were not implanted and that there was no chance of an implant for the foreseeable in future …in fact at one meeting we were told that as my husband had gone deaf so quickly he had not really understood what being deaf was like and he would have unrealistic expectations of how an implant would work, so they would not consider implanting him until he appreciated deafness!
Eventually after lots of letter writing, lobbying MP’s, wrangling with administrators about funding, we were told he could have an implant. We were so relieved we understood that the hearing would not be like real hearing but maybe tinny, mechanical sounding but we were crying and so happy that we had got this far.
He has had the implant now for 5 years and we can communicate again. Its not like real hearing there are limitations he cannot use the telephone ……he needs to see peoples faces to understand some sounds so talking in the dark is out ….he cannot hear music.. he still uses subtitles on the TV but he can make out different peoples voices so he knows my new voice and his daughters and his sons …..none of which he could before. People ask him can he hear now? Has his hearing come back? The answer is NO its great but its not like it was before he went deaf. Its fantastic but he wishes it could do more. Would he like another one? The answer is YES and so do I.