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PR: How old were you when your hearing loss diagnosed?
HWM: I lost my hearing when I was 18 months old. I contracted meningitis
and a high fever that almost resulted in my death. I left the hospital
with a profound hearing loss, but my parents did not know about my
deafness until several months later. My deafness was discovered on
Christmas day when my mother dropped some pans in the kitchen that made a
crashing sound. The noise scared everybody in the family, but I did not
react to the sound. My grandmother who was helping me play with my new
toys realized that I did not react to the noise and told my mother that
she suspected that I might have some hearing loss. My mom refused to
believe that anything was wrong with me and to prove her point took a
wooden spoon and banged on a pot behind me. Much to her surprise – I did
not turn my head and continued to play with my toys.
PR: What was the severity of your hearing loss? Was it a progressive loss?
HWM: I have an 80dB hearing loss in my left ear and a 100dB hearing loss
in my right ear. My loss is sensorineural or “nerve deafness.”
PR: Did you have any spoken language at that time?
HWM: Yes, before I became deaf, I was communicating like a typical
18-month-old hearing child.
PR: What kind of schooling and therapy did you have that enabled you to
learn to speak so well?
HWM: My mother was a schoolteacher so we did a lot of homework. She chose
to use the Acoupedic Approach, which meant I had to use what little
hearing I had with my hearing aids and rely on auditory stimulation. I
visited a private speech therapist twice a week. It took me six years to
say my last name correctly. I was mainstreamed in public hearing school
until 4th grade and then I attended Central Institute for the Deaf, which
is an oral school located in St. Louis, Missouri. When I was 14 years old,
I went back to public high school and graduated with 3.6 GPA without using
a sign language interpreter. I did not learn sign language until I was in
11th grade.
PR: Did you have any role models when you were growing up? If so, who were
they?
HWM: While growing up, my mother was my big role model. She did not let
adversity and doubters prevent her from pursuing her dreams for me. Helen
Keller also became a role model of mine when I was in 4th grade. As most
people know, she was born in my home state of Alabama and became deaf and
blind at around 18 months of age. I felt like she was my sister and I
began to take her words and accomplishments very seriously. She influenced
me not to use my deafness as an excuse for not achieving my dreams.
PR: What do you feel boosted your self-esteem most growing up as a deaf
child?
HWM: My ballet classes boosted my self-esteem tremendously. Hoping to
improve the rhythm of my speech, my mother had enrolled me in a ballet
class when I was five years old. Through ballet I was fortunate to find a
place to escape, a refuge from my feelings of being an outsider. The dance
studio was the one place I felt accepted and “just like everybody else.”
When I became a teenager, I began to participate in the sport of
orienteering – a popular competition that involves being dropped off in
unfamiliar woods with nothing but a map and a compass. Orienteering
enabled me to increase my self-esteem, and I found that I also loved the
thrill of competition. Competing on an equal footing with hearing people
assured me that my mind and heart were no different from theirs, and when
I won the state orienteering championship, my self-confidence increased by
leaps and bounds. I’m sure that God used this competition to help me on
the journey toward my dream because by the time I began to compete in
pageants, I was already familiar with intense competitive experiences.
PR: Did you have friends who had normal hearing as well as friends who had
hearing loss growing up?
HWM: Most of my childhood I had only hearing friends because I was the
only deaf child in the public schools. However, by the time I became a
teenager I had several oral deaf friends. It was healthy for me to have
both deaf and hearing friends.
PR: Did you wear two hearing aids prior to getting a cochlear implant?
HWM: Prior to having cochlear implant surgery I wore only one hearing aid
in my left ear. Unfortunately, I could not hear any sound from my right
ear even with the help of a hearing aid. For this reason, I used my right
ear for the cochlear implant. My right ear had been sleeping for 28 years
until the cochlear implant woke it up on September 19th, 2002.
PR: In the past was lip-reading your primary source of communication when
others were talking?
HWM: Lip reading has been a primary source of communication for me, but I
also listened with the help of my hearing aid. If I only read lips I would
not get very much information. When I was a little girl, I was discouraged
from relying upon lip reading. My mother, my teachers and my speech
therapist would all cover their lips in order to challenge me to develop
my residual hearing in my left ear.
PR: Did you find lip reading stressful?
HWM: I find lip reading very stressful and frustrating because it is often
confusing. For example, if you look at person’s lips while they are saying
“dog” and “saw” they look the same. With my hearing aid alone, I do not
hear “s” or “d” sounds. So usually I have to use my common sense. For
example, if someone said, “The dog is running across the street.” Then I
knew it was not the saw who ran across the street – it was the dog. Most
hearing people do not understand that people in my position have to think
incredibly fast in order to keep up with conversations. One-on-one
conversations are not that stressful, but group conversations when coupled
with background noise are nearly impossible. Lip reading is a grueling and
exhausting mental exercise and people who rely on lip reading are
constantly thinking and trying to discern what is actually being said. I
get really upset with those who think that I am stupid simply because I
cannot hear. The truth is I get exhausted after a while and simply cannot
keep up. At that point, I begin to guess at what is being said and
eventually give up and choose to be quiet.
PR: Do you have any advice for those who are considering a cochlear
implant for themselves or their children?
HWM: Most importantly, I suggest that they find a great doctor, research
the various types of devices that are available and speak to as many
implant recipients as possible to learn from their experience.
I am not a doctor, but I have some general observations. First and
foremost, there are major differences between people who have hearing
loss. Some lost their hearing late in life, some lost their hearing as an
infant, and some were born with hearing loss prior to birth.
For infants and children who have severe hearing loss, I strongly
recommend that they consider having a cochlear implant if they do not
benefit much from their hearing aids. The brains of younger children are
receptive to developing the capability to maximize the benefit of cochlear
implants. This provides them with a good chance to develop their
communication and speech skills. The same is true for older adults who
have sudden severe hearing loss. Those individuals have previously
developed the critical brain pathways to recognize and comprehend speech.
For adults like me who have not heard sounds for many years, the decision
to receive an implant is more complicated as many people in my position
have no experience comprehending sound. Further, my brain is not like that
of a child and is not very interested in learning to do something new.
I had not heard a sound from my right ear for 28 years, not even with the
help of hearing aid. My right ear and brain connections did not have an
opportunity to develop language and speech when I was a toddler. I have
depended on a hearing aid for my left ear ever since I was a toddler and I
can talk on the phone, listen to the music and hear the sirens. Of course,
I cannot understand what the people are saying on the radio nor can I
understand a conversation with a group of people or hear a preacher or a
speaker from the stage.
I was relatively content with my deafness and my hearing aid until my
oldest son started to become more independent. He began to walk away from
me instead of being in my arms and he also began talking more. He often
asked me questions about the sounds he had heard and I could not answer
his questions because I did not know what he was hearing. I also realized
that I missed his crying from a distance. One time in particular, Little
John fell down in the backyard and I saw my husband walking to him and
comforting him. My husband had heard him crying and I had not. It bothered
me in a great way because I wanted to be there for my boys. That is the
primary reason that I chose to have a cochlear implant in my right ear.
I learned from my experience during the first four months with the
cochlear implant that having better hearing takes much determination and a
lot of faith in God. Changing my lifestyle is painful and frustrating, but
I believe it is worth it because I did finally hear my boys’ cries from
the back yard. Four months after surgery, I realized that I was beginning
to understand my boys’ speech better. For example, before I had a cochlear
implant, my oldest son had to repeat what he said about ten times. Now he
only has to repeat two or three times. I am getting better at hearing.
So my advice for older adults with a long-term hearing loss is that they
must be very patient because they will succeed at a different pace from
young children and older adults who experienced sudden hearing loss.
PR: How did your husband, parents and friends react when you told them you
decided to have the surgery?
HWM: They all were very supportive as long as I felt it was a good
decision. They did not push me to have a cochlear implant. They just
wanted me to be happy with myself.
PR: How old are your sons?
HWM: My oldest son is three years old and my youngest one is almost two
years old.
PR: Has their hearing been tested? If so, what kind of tests did they
have?
HWM: Yes, Georgia passed the law requiring all newborn babies to have a
hearing-screening test before they left the hospitals. I don’t know what
kind of test my boys took in the hospital because I was not in the room
where they performed the hearing tests. Both my boys have normal hearing.
PR: Do they understand what the cochlear implant is?
HWM: My oldest son is proud to say that he is Dr. McCallum because he
loves putting my cochlear implant on my ear. He understands why I have it.
He tells people that my ear is broken.
PR: How did you decide which cochlear implant to get?
HWM: I was still uncertain about having the surgery until I read, “Sounds
from Silence, Graeme Clark and the Bionic Ear Story.” Dr. Graeme Clark
performed the first successful cochlear implant and has been working on
improving the Nucleus cochlear implant for thirty years. As I read his
book, I realized that Dr. Clark became a Christian while in college and
asked God to help him with his work on the cochlear implant. I am a
Christian as well and it was important for me to know that a gentleman who
is a believer and has faith in God invented the Nucleus.
PR: How many months post-activation are you now?
HWM: I had my surgery on August 7th, 2002 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in
Baltimore, Maryland.
PR: What are you able to hear on the day of activation?
HWM: The Nucleus device was activated on September 19th, 2002. My husband
John, the boys, my mother and mother-in-law were with me when I heard my
first sound – the clapping hands of my audiologist, Jennifer Yeagle. When
I first heard the clapping, I heard it and thought it was a dream. Then
she clapped again. It hit me that the sound was real, not a dream. I
immediately began weeping.
I could not hear my boys’ voices on that day. But later on that day as I
was getting ready in the hotel I moved my make up supplies around in their
plastic carrying case and, to my amazement, I heard small clicking sounds
as the makeup bottles clicked against each other. It was so startling that
I forgot what I was looking for and just stood there moving things around
for several minutes.
A few minutes later, I pulled out a small can of hairspray for my hair. I
pushed the button and heard the spraying sound – I was so startled I
stared at the can and pushed the button again, just to be sure the button
and the hissing sound were linked. Again and again I pushed the button,
delighted with a new sound, one I can never remember hearing from my
hearing aid.
Later that day, I could hear people’s voices a tiny bit, but I could not
differentiate between them. And the voices were incredibly soft – so quiet
it was frustrating to strain to hear them.
I was brushing my teeth and not paying much attention to sounds, when God
took advantage of the quiet moment to surprise me with the most beautiful
sound I heard that first day. As I turned on the water, a beautiful,
natural music danced in my ear and I recognized the rhythms in the sounds
of dripping water. I could hear water with my hearing aid, but the
cochlear implant made the sound much more crisp.
I turned the water on and off, enjoying the sound and thinking of my role
model Helen Keller, for whom the feel of running water triggered
understanding and opened the window to a new world. She had been overjoyed
by the experience, and I shared that same joy on the first day with my
cochlear implant.
That night as I lay in bed, I heard God’s voice speak to my heart:
“Heather, I will bless you with a new gift of sound every day. You will
hear your boys at the right time because I love you.”
PR: What do you hope to hear and/or understand in the future?
HWM: I hope I will have a better understanding of my boys’ speech and a
better ability to hear what they hear. I don’t expect myself to hear all
of it, but at least close to every sound they hear.
PR: What is the best part about having your cochlear implant?
HWM: The best part about the cochlear implant is that I am becoming more
aware of what is going on in my house and around my boys. One time I
caught my boys climbing into the bathtub because I heard the fast running
water. I also am beginning to understand my boys’ speech more. I really
don’t care about other things like going to the movie. I just want to be
part of my boys’ lives and want to hear what they hear. I also hope to do
a better job on being there when my boys need me, especially when they
cry. Four months after my activation, the cochlear implant brought me a
great relief when I heard a cry and realized that my oldest boy was crying
in the backyard. I had heard him in the back yard even though the door was
closed.
PR: How has it changed your professional life?
HWM: I have a better chance to express my concerns to the government about
the needs for the children and elderly with hearing loss and bring
awareness of new technologies for those who have hearing loss. The media
attention that I have received has helped raise awareness and break down
barriers for people considering cochlear implants. I am honored that God
opened the door for me to help more people in the deaf community.
PR: Would you consider having a second implant done for your other ear?
HWM: No, I can still talk on the phone with my hearing aid on my other
ear. I do not believe it is necessary for me to have another surgery and I
would also like to wait for better technology in the future. It just makes
more sense for me to stay with my hearing aid in my left ear.
PR: Heather, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview
with me. My daughter and I look forward to meeting you in person at one of
your upcoming public appearances. You are an inspiring role model for so
many people! |
