Deaf patients could hear again in television first
APAIR of Birmingham patients are to take part in a groundbreaking TV documentary showing the moment they may hear for the first time after they were fitted with a cochlear implant.
The life-changing moment for profoundly deaf women Rebecca, 32, and Fiona, 37, will be shown live on November 22 when the device is switched on.
Both are being treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in Edgbaston, and will have the implant fitted before the TV show airs.
Audiologists from the hospital will conduct the switch-on, watched by family and friends.
The implant, an electronic device which stimulates the inner ear, can replace hearing that has been lost and gives access to sounds users were previously unaware of.
On the night of transmission, the instant each patients’ implant is switched on will be broadcast live and at that moment they will discover just if and what they can hear.
Nine years ago mother-of-one Rebecca lost her hearing in her right ear virtually overnight.
She coped well with the loss but, in July this year, she felt unwell and went to sleep it off. When she awoke she was deaf in her other ear.
Rebecca said: “You hear of people being born deaf or gradually losing their hearing, but to wake up and it’s gone, it’s the scariest thing ever.”
Since then Rebecca has been left profoundly deaf but suffers the added difficulty of being unable to lip read. Now her main focus is being able to communicate with her little boy again at such a crucial stage in his development.
He is now speaking in sentences and it upsets her to think she is missing much.
She said: “The main thing I want to get out of the implant is to be able to hear my son again.”
Fiona was born deaf and what little hearing she had deteriorated over the years.
But the mother-of-two, who is a signalling designer for Network Rail has not let her disability stop her from doing things she loves and she even plays the piano.
She said: “I get stuck in and have a go. If someone says you can’t do that, I ask why? Because I can’t hear? I think I just need to find another way round... so that’s my life. Up until now I’ve just got on with it.
“Notes on the piano I don’t hear the tone of them, they sound the same to me from bass to treble clef... I had to learn how to do it, I had to read and read the music, memorise it and read and read it again and work hard to remember it and work out where the notes were.”
Fiona was first approached about an implant as a teenager when the operation was only just becoming available, but she felt the operation was too invasive and she feared losing part of her identity.
She investigated the idea a few years ago but has only now decided the time is right to go ahead with it.
Fiona’s dream is that the cochlear implant will allow her to hear her children for the first time and be just like any other mum.
She added: “What if they want to sing? I want to hear that! Or play music, do theatre? That’s my motivation, that’s my reward at the end – for the children’s future and my quality of sound. Hopefully it will make my world complete.”
The programme will air on Channel 4 on November 22