I got a Baha hearing implant!

On 7th February, I had surgery to implant a titanium screw into the skull bone behind my right ear. A small abutment (looks like a clothing press stud) was then attached to that screw. Once the implant and bone fuse (a process that takes about 3 months), I will receive my sound processor which clips onto the abutment and my hearing will be much improved.

I'm a member of the Baha users support forum and this following testimony will be included on the website soon...

How do you sum up a lifetime of being deaf in one ear?
My hearing was first tested when I was very young. My parents took me to see a family friend, a top ear specialist here in Australia, as they noticed I wasn’t responding to them if they were on my right side. It also became clear that I had no ability to locate the source of sounds. If someone said my name I would look all around me until I could see them. At first my parents thought it might be glue ear, but tests soon revealed that I had profound sensorineural deafness in my right ear. Apparently my cochlea and hearing nerve decided to be antisocial and didn’t want to talk to each other from day one! Well that was a bit rude of them wasn’t it? Haha. My parents were told that it would be a case of waiting 20 years or so for new hearing technology to be invented. Conventional hearing aids were of no use to me. You can’t amplify sound that isn’t there. That was in about 1988.

Fast forward to 2006 after many years of rusty lipreading skills, positioning people on my left side out of habit, and asking “what?” so many times that I’d be rich if I got a coin for each time I said it! I was tired of asking people to repeat themselves. I was tired of walking into noisy places (like a restaurant) and hearing all this muddled, indistinct speech. I was tired of concentrating during conversations so much. I was tired of being tired. There had to be something better than this.

2006 was the year I discovered there were a few devices that could help me hear better. The first of which was the BAHA implant (trialled using a test headband). I decided not to go ahead with surgery as I wasn’t sure the device really worked for me, though in retrospect I’m not sure that the processor was working properly, but I’ll never know for sure. Instead I went with a crossover hearing aid system (CROS – contralateral routing of signal). The behind-the-ear hearing aid in my right ear has a microphone that picks up sound and sends it wirelessly to the receiver hearing aid in my good ear, creating a perception of sound on the deaf side. I was 20 when I first heard sound in a new way. I could definitely hear and understand more with my hearing aids.

4 years later in 2010 I decided to have a second go at trialling the BAHA, which was like my hearing aids but using bone conduction instead of sound travelling through air. This time I tried out a new BP100 processor which I thought was pretty fancy pants! I trialled it for 1 week, but I had already made my choice to say yes to the surgery in the first half hour! I was ready.

On February 7th, 2011 I had my BAHA surgery under general anaesthetic and stayed overnight in hospital. Soon after, I did a little experiment. I blocked my good ear to see if I could hear anything with my implant (before I get the processor). I can't hear speech or the tv yet, but I could faintly hear the shower running and my mum tapping a spoon against a drinking glass. Pretty awesome if I do say so myself!
Getting hearing aids and now a BAHA implant has helped me to accept my hearing loss and not be shy or self-conscious about it anymore. My friends and family have always supported me and they continue to walk with me in my journey to better hearing. For that I cannot thank them enough.

On May 9th 2011 I will get my BP100 processor. If what I heard during the trial is anything to go by, then for the first time ever I will be entering a world full of so many rich colours, only it will be in sound instead. Thank you for reading my testimony. I will update it after I get my magic box! =)