Why an implant?

Journey out of the muffled kingdom?

A Cochlear Implant Story

By Dan Sheridan

The Sheridan family, Christmas, 2003

My Hearing Loss

(April, 2005) I've had a hearing loss as long as I can remember. My loss started when I was about 3 years old. My parents first noticed my hearing loss when I came out of surgery after having my tonsils removed. I started wearing a hearing aid when I was in second grade. It helped, but my hearing continued to drop. I added a second hearing aid when I was in graduate school in the 1980s. Still, my hearing worsened.

Until about 15 years ago, I could sometimes hear on the telephone, but now I cannot even hear the dial tone. In fact, I usually don't know that the phone is ringing. My hearing loss without a hearing aid is about 105 to 110 dB, meaning that I might hear a loud clap of thunder, but nothing quieter than that. With my aids and with lipreading, I can sometimes understand a person standing a few feet away, if they enunciate clearly. I cannot hear a smoke alarm, even with my hearing aids on. When I attend a basketball game, I don't hear the whistles blow or the buzzers sound. On the other hand, I usually do hear the beep when I scan an item at a self-serve register at the store, and I sometimes hear cars and trucks passing me while I'm on a bicycle ride.

I've coped with my loss by developing many adaptive techniques, and by being surrounded by very supportive family, friends, and coworkers. I use some sign language, but I'm not proficient in it. At work, my coworkers are very nice about writing things down for me and answering the telephone when it rings. When I coached my children in baseball, softball, and basketball, the kids of the team would quickly learn to fingerspell, and would thus communicate with me. I rely heavily on e-mail instead of telephone communication. Our parish priest, Fr Rod Damico, even e-mails me his wonderful homilies each week. When I go on bicycle rides with friends, they make a "C" with their hands to alert me that a car is approaching from behind.

Thinking about an Implant

I've thought about getting a cochlear implant many times over the past few decades, but always decided to wait. I'm a happy person in spite of my hearing loss, and I have a wonderful wife and family, great job as a hospital pharmacist, and terrific friends. I knew that a cochlear implant probably wouldn't make me happier. I'm already happy. Plus, the idea of having a hole drilled in my head was frightening.

Last year a variety of things happened that moved me along in my decision. Our little toddler (Ryan) started learning to talk, and I really wanted to hear what he was saying. Angie, Alex, and Emily (our three older kids) were in high school, and I knew that they would be leaving the nest soon. I would like to be able to talk to them on the phone if possible, and not just rely on my wife Shelly to relay for me. I respond to codes (cardiac arrests, traumas, intubations, etc) at the hospital, and I feel that I owe it to the patients to hear as well as I can when their lives are on the line and everyone is in a hurry. One code in particular, on a little baby, really made me wish that I could hear what was needed, even though we did save the baby. I talked to many friends who had cochlear implants, and most were doing very well.

The deciding factor, however, was a boy named Nate Smith. Nate was a good friend of my older son, and had a brain tumor. He first had the tumor when he was a toddler, and over the years he had brain surgery 5 or 6 times. He was always very brave about it, going into surgery with a smile and trusting in God to take care of him. Several years ago, Nate's disease seemed to be well under control, and his family (Nate, his mother Mary, and his brother Josh) were looking for a project to keep busy over the summer. They decided that they wanted to raise money so that I could have a cochlear implant. At the time, I didn't know if I wanted one, and I didn't know if my insurance would cover it, so I asked them to let me think about it. The next week, they learned that Nate's tumor had come back, and they started a year-long battle that ended with his death the day before his senior year of high school would have started. Nate's example gave me the courage to do this, and he's my inspiration.

The journey continues on page 2

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