The Personal Experience of Arlene Romoff
I’ve had my cochlear implant for 7-1/2 years, and I am still in awe of being able to hear again. I had normal hearing until my early twenties, when my slow descent into deafness began. My hearing declined over the next 25 years, until I was left with virtually none.
As a long-time client of the League for the Hard of Hearing in New York, and a member of SHHH (Self Help for Hard of Hearing People Inc.), I kept abreast of current technology. Over the years, I used a variety of assistive listening devices, but eventually even those weren’t effective for me. I learned everything I could about cochlear implants, and met people who had them.
With each decrease in hearing, activities that used to be pleasant became less so. Movies, concerts, theatre, socializing with friends — once vibrant parts of my life — began to fade, and then became unbearably difficult. Finally, the day came when even a simple conversation with friends wasn’t possible, and the long journey into deafness was over. The cochlear implant was my last hope at functioning effectively in the world as I knew it — the hearing world.
In my book, Hear Again — Back to Life with a Cochlear Implant, a chronicle of my first year with my cochlear implant, I wrote, “About a dozen times a day, I’m reminded how my behavior is different because I can hear. I welcome human contact. I no longer walk through the day hoping that no one will speak to me. I’m a part of the world around me, not isolated in my silence or confined to my own thoughts.” Those words are as true today as the day I wrote them.
Deafness, an invisible disability, is vastly misunderstood and underestimated. Helen Keller called it an “inhuman silence,” because it separated her from people. She explained that she found it a greater challenge than her blindness, which separated her from things.
With the miracle of my cochlear implant, people are no longer obstacles but human beings again. The electrician, the bank teller, the supermarket cashier, the postman — they’re all people who have personalities and can be engaged in conversation — simple human contact that the veil of deafness denied me. And, it turns out that the people in my life were as eager to communicate with me as I was to understand them!
Does the cochlear implant (CI) allow me to have “normal” hearing? No — it has its limitations. Background noise can present problems, as can hearing at a distance. But, fortunately, upgrades in both hardware and software have improved my functioning. My first CI speech processor was a body-worn style, the size of a large “beeper.” Three years ago, I upgraded to a miniaturized behind-theear model and, coupled with a small auxiliary microphone that fit into the ear, my functioning in noise and on the telephone improved. In addition, using an assortment of assistive devices, such as an infrared receiver in the theater, or a personal FM system for lecture-type programs, allows me to overcome the problems of background noise and distance.
And music is once again a part of my life! When I first got my CI, music was what I described as “electronic mush.” At first, only the simplest arrangements were melodic, but after a while, I was able to listen to more complex harmonies. And music that I grew up with still sounds the best.
As the years go by — even with no changes in programming or hardware — my brain seems to be learning to do “better.” The medical profession calls this “brain plasticity”— the capacity to adapt on its own. (It took two years for organ music to finally come around!) I’m also able to move from different environments more seamlessly, and think less about my hearing. I can’t say that I function as a hearing person, but there are more times now that I simply don’t think about my hearing as much.
The fact remains, though, that I’m still a deaf person, sometimes masquerading as a hearing person, and sometimes functioning as someone with a mild to moderate hearing loss. Every night, though, when I remove my CI to go to sleep, I’m deaf again — and showers and swimming are also done in silence. I never take my hearing for granted — the miracle of being able to go from silence to sound. It’s a special joy and wonder that hearing people cannot fully appreciate, that I experience each and every day.
Arlene Romoff October 26, 2005